Bajau Laut tours curbed after video of handouts went viral

Sabah Tourism Board general manager Suzaini Sabdin Ghani says Sabah never encourages tour operators to include visits to sea gypsy settlements in their packages.

Sabah Tourism Board general manager Suzaini Sabdin Ghani says tour operators have been told not to use the video.

KOTA KINABALU: Tour operators and guides at Semporna have been told not to include visits to the Bajau Laut offshore settlements after a video showing villagers asking for handouts on a tourist boat went viral.

Sabah Tourism Board (STB) general manager Suzaini Sabdin Ghani said tour operators have never been encouraged to include such visits in their itinerary.

“That has never been the route to promote Semporna,” she said here today.

Amirah Amir Hamja, who works for a tour company in Semporna, took the video on June 26 while accompanying a group of tourists to a sea settlement called Kg Tatagan, off Bohey Dulang, one of the many islands off Semporna.

She said she never intended to post the video online.

After finding the clip making its round on Facebook, she lodged a police report denying she was the one who posted the video or intended to cast a bad light on the community.

The Bajau Laut community, also known as nomadic sea gypsies, have lived in Sabah for generations but many do not have identification papers.

Besides Bohey Dulang, they have settlements off the islands of Mabul, Sibuan and Mantabuan.

Social media users expressed mixed reactions to the video, some calling on the authorities to act fast to prevent untoward incidents while others were fine with the behaviour of the Bajau Laut.

Suzaini said the board handed copies of the video to the district officer (DO) and the police and also alerted tour operators in Semporna about it on social media.

“There have been engagements by the DO who told guides and operators not to use the video as an attraction,” she said.

She said the issue was delicate as the Bajau Laut community was known to be stateless.

“Of course we want to help them but at the same time we don’t want our tourism industry to be affected,” Suzaini said, adding the tourism board only heard of one such case so far.

“That is the doing of some tour guides or operators… it’s a photograph-worthy (view) but, in the long term, it doesn’t benefit anybody. So we have to curb this.” -FMT