This study reviewed some of the challenges faced by local authorities in disaster management, especially flood disasters that occurred in Malaysia. Flood disasters are the most frequent disasters in Malaysia, especially during the monsoon seasons. The hard structure developed by Malaysia’s National Security Council (MKN) under ‘Directive 20’ is used to manage disasters in the country. Although Malaysia has become more skillful in managing flood disasters, the frequent climate changes along with weakness in implementing flood risk management plans resulted in much losses and damages throughout the country. Therefore, this study explored the gaps and weaknesses in flood risk management (FRM) in Malaysia by reviewing the available literature to recommend better flood management. This study revealed four main issues which are weaknesses in terms of (i) coordination and communication, (ii) manpower and assets, (iii) public awareness, and (iv) power and authority among local authorities to implement flood management plans. The capacity of local authorities and individuals in charge of disaster management is inadequate, especially for flood risk preparedness and management. Hence, responsible individuals are also in a vulnerable situation to implement management plans or rescue operations when flood disasters occur since they are also flood victims. Thus, the National Disaster Management Agency (NADMA) which acts as the main coordinator of disaster management in Malaysia should re-examine the flood management plan to ensure that it can be implemented efficiently and effectively, especially at the local level as they are the first respondents on the scene when the disaster occurs. The combination of both structural and non-structural measures might require in many cases the management of flood disasters; however, the disaster risk preparedness and management of individuals via customized training is a must to prevent flood disasters as well as minimize their impact. The flood management plan should also incorporate natural-based approaches at the whole-river-basin level for the long-term solution and sustainable development, not only focusing to manage the localized flood problem at the specific area.

In recent years, virtual reality (VR) is at its maturity level for real practical exercises amongst many fields of studies, especially in the virtual walkthrough exploration system of cultural heritage (CH). However, this study remains scattered and limited. This work presents a systematic review that maps out the usability and accessibility issues that are challenging in using VR in CH. We identified 45 challenges that are mapped into five problem groups: system design, development process, technology, assessment process and knowledge transfer. This mapping is then used to propose 58 recommendations to improve the usability and accessibility of VR in CH that are categorized in three different recommendation groups namely, discovery and planning, design and development, and finally the assessment factors. This analysis identified the persistence in certain accessibility and usability problems such as there is a limit in navigating the view and space that constraint the users’ free movement and the navigation control is not ideal with the keyboard arrow button. This work is important because it provides an overview of usability and accessibility based challenges that are faced in applying, developing, deploying and assessing VR in the usage of digitalizing CH and proposed a great number of constructive recommendations to guide future studies. The main contribution of this paper is the mapping of usability and accessibility challenges into categories and the development of recommendations based on the identified problems.

The leadership roles of green hotels are essential for sustainable development because of their contribution to reducing carbon emission, supplying safe food, and managing water resources. However, sustainability education has not adequately integrated entrepreneurial skills to promote green hotel practices towards sustainable development. Therefore, this study explored the leadership roles of the Frangipani Hotel in Langkawi, Malaysia, because it adopted a circular economy in line with the zero-waste concept to develop the environmental and socio-economic condition of the locality. Extensive literature reviews were conducted to explore the transformational leadership roles of the Frangipani hotel for green practices. Interviews with the managing director, general manager, and the head of 10 operating branches of Frangipani also provided information about the green hotel practices to support its leadership roles. Similarly, interviews with the public, private, business, and community stakeholders also supported the transformational leadership roles of Frangipani to integrated green hotel practices with effective multi-stakeholder collaboration for quality control and quality assurance of its green practices. The patience of Frangipani and its roles as a liaison among government, non-government, business, and private and community sectors have been very effective in promoting green practices in the hospitability industry via training and knowledge-sharing. However, the monitoring and evaluation of these green practices are essential, and they can be completed via developing a special key performance index for the effective promotion of green hotels.

A sustainable city should promote the active participation of its civil society in urban planning and development of cities as the means to satisfy their needs. However, the absence of an appropriate platform has caused the public to lose interest and neglect the process of planning and development. This article attempts to develop a conceptual framework for sustainable cities and communities’ empowerment through the introduction of community-based monitoring as a means to increase community resilience and well-being. Community-based monitoring is designed to be instrumental in addressing environmental sustainability issues with public participation, where the community champions the environmental monitoring process for the decision making of planning and development of cities. The conceptual framework is expected to serve as an approach in driving the urban community towards attaining a more inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable environment.