Tour agencies upset Tourism Ministry not doing enough to help them

The Malaysian Association Tour Agency (Mata) has criticised the Tourism Ministry for not doing enough to engage stakeholders ahead of the tabling of Budget 2021.

This amid international tourism coming to a complete standstill after the country's borders were shut since March to combat the spread of Covid-19 and domestic tourism being sluggish as the country slipped in and out of movement control orders (MCO).

Mata president Mohd Khalid Harun took aim at the Tourism Ministry's officers in particular.

"Our question is, what are the officers at the Tourism Ministry really doing?" he asked in a statement.

Khalid said despite the tourism industry being the hardest-hit by the pandemic, only three forms of assistance were provided for the Tourism Ministry in Budget 2021.

This includes RM50 million to retrain and redeploy 8,000 staff in the aviation industry, a RM1,000 grant for the Sabah tourism industry players and 500 jobs for local and Orang Asli communities to act as tour guides.

Khalid noted that there were other allocations for assistance but none of them was under the Tourism Ministry's budget.

He pointed out that the RM50 million allocation for the maintenance and repair of tourism facilities came under the Housing and Local Government Ministry while the RM10 million budget to preserve heritage buildings came under the Works Ministry.

Furthermore, he said the RM35 million allocation for the Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council came under the Finance Ministry while the six-month exemption for Human Resources Development Fund (HRDF) levies for companies was under the Human Resources Ministry.

"This shows they (the Tourism Ministry officers) have failed to engage industry players when planning their allocation," Khalid said.

Khalid also claimed the ministry failed to play its role in the tourism sector financing scheme under the Penjana stimulus package where only three percent of the RM1 billion allocation had been disbursed.

Khalid said the only relief was Tourism Minister Nancy Shukri's announcement yesterday that her ministry had secured an additional RM200 million funding for the Tourism Rehabilitation Plan next year.

"We hope the officers at the Tourism Ministry will handle it with urgency as even the allocation for this year has yet to be expended even though the announcements were made in July.

"For the sake of the industry's survival, we hope the Tourism Ministry officers will rise to the occasion and feel the industry's pulse," he said. - Mkini