Safeguard Malaysia’s image at all cost

The vast majority of Malaysians are moderate but they are easily drowned out by the few extremists who are highly vocal.

COMMENT

By CY Ming

Tourism Malaysia recently released the latest statistics on foreign visitor arrivals to our country.

There was an overall 4.4% growth for the first 10 months of last year over the corresponding period in 2015.

Arrivals increased from 14 countries, averaging 9%, while there was a decrease from 31 countries, averaging 16%.

The rest of the world dropped by 26.7% but they constitute only 1% of total visitor arrivals of 22,056,417 over the 10-month period.

At this rate, arrivals for 12 months would only be 26,467,700, four million short of the 30.5 million targeted by the tourism and culture ministry.

The top five countries registered a 9.2% growth and contributed slightly over 80% of all arrivals, with an increase of 1,493,976 visitors.

The star performer was Thailand with a jump of 375,961 visitors, followed by China 372,702, Singapore 305,960, Indonesia 255,017 and Brunei 184,336. The increase from nine other countries combined was only 69,925.

Visitors from the Philippines went down by 111,102, Australia 97,837, India 64,237 and Japan 62,075. In terms of percentage, the plunge was greatest at 39.9% among those from Sri Lanka.

While efforts should be made to arrest the slide from 31 countries, greater attention should be accorded to the 14 countries that are on the rise.

The reason for the drop among visitors from India was a no-brainer. For some strange reasons, there was a high rate of rejections for Malaysian visas applied online, and the high fees charged by appointed visa agents deterred many from visiting Malaysia, as visa fees for other countries were lower or there was no visa charge.

It is sad that efforts made by Tourism Malaysia have often been negated by the inefficiency of other government agencies. Tourists are highly sensitive and would always prefer countries that are more welcoming and people-friendly.

Malaysians by nature are one of the friendliest and most hospitable people on earth, although some can be rude without even realising it. We can certainly be more courteous in speech and body language.

The vast majority of Malaysians are moderate but they are easily drowned out by the few extremists who are highly vocal. Come the general election, it is likely to be no holds barred for those all out to win votes from their own communities.

The most popular route would be stoking emotions by condemning others, as it requires too much effort to come up with concrete measures to uplift one’s community. Our tourism industry will be severely affected if the local Chinese community are used as a punching bag.

Apart from 1.4 billion in China and over 30 million in Hong Kong and Taiwan, overseas Chinese account for another 50 million. Combined, ethnic Chinese form the largest group of visitors to Malaysia, partly attracted by the presence of 7.4 million Malaysian Chinese.

If the local media were to play to the gallery in the heat of campaigning by engaging in community bashing, the repercussions would be severe as it will spread like wild fire through social media.

Such damage will take a long time to recover as it is normal for people to remember the negative for an extended period, while the positive is forgotten too easily.

As such, we must be proactive by introducing strict guidelines for campaigning and execute damage control swiftly instead of allowing wounds to fester.

A good example was the “Squatgate” incident in 2005. A video showed a nude female detainee, initially thought to be a Chinese citizen, forced to do ear squats. What happened next was more like a comedy of errors except it was no laughing matter.

Later, it was revealed that the detainee was neither a China national nor ethnic Chinese but the damage was already done. Should such incidences recur, the impact will be much greater as huge numbers of people are now connected by social media using smartphones.

The number of visitors from China to Malaysia should easily surpass two million last year and may double this year. In 2015, China outbound tourists made 120 million trips overseas and 10 million visited Thailand last year.

China visitors hold the key to Malaysia’s target of attracting 36 million visitors by the year 2020, but our Malaysia Tourism Transformation Plan could easily be derailed by loudmouthed politicians if they are not kept in check.

The health of tourism is also an accurate barometer of our economy. Should our tourism industry go down, the economy of our country will also be in the doldrums.

Likewise, our tourism and economy will boom if our politicians do not dabble in race-based politics, but this will remain a distant dream unless adequate penalties are put in place.

CY Ming is an FMT reader.