European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine

Abstract

Due to the pandemic of Covid-19, the tourism sector faces difficulties sustaining
the tourism attraction in Melaka, Malaysia's cultural heritage. Tourists could not visit the
physical places easily and need to follow a standard operating procedure such as not
encourage children to be around in the public area and limit the number of visitors in one
time with a limited time duration. Therefore, this paper focuses on the sustainability of the
Melaka cultural heritage for Hang Tuah Village (HTV) history through applying the
virtual reality (VR) platform. HTV Digital tourism can be an innovative way to preserve
historical artifacts and increase the location's popularity. With the development of
immersive VR, tourists can explore the HTV and interact with historical objects. The
historical background of HTV exploration can be done without traveling and expose to the
risk of Covid-19 and damaging the historic site. The functionality of the VR tested using
usability testing through the User Experience Questionnaire (UEQ), which eventually has
16 dimensions. The five dimensions applied are attractiveness, perspicuity, dependability,
usefulness, and novelty. The evaluation is using a 5-point Likert scale with a total number
of 17 questionnaires. As a result, the UEQ acceptance of the system is 'High', with 3.875
average overall of the mean score, and 77.5% of the respondents were overwhelming good
feedback based on the experience. Thus, with the high acceptance received, it concluded
that the adaptation of immersive VR could help sustain the tourism industry to preserve the
history of HTV.