Time for Yen Yen to stop her jet-setting, 6-star hotels dependency

Tourism Minister Ng Yen Yen should not dwell on PAS and their religious views but should concentrate on her job, which is looking after Malaysian tourism.

When the PAS Youth movement decided that it would counsel unmarried Muslim couples against immoral activities, Yen Yen was quick to blame them for the drop in tourist arrivals.

How does she know this? Did she give us facts and figures to substantiate her outrageous claims? What are the tourist figures for previous years? What are the figures for before and after Valentine? Did she take into account things that were happening elsewhere in the world which might have affected tourist arrivals?

Perhaps this is Yen Yen’s chance to retaliate against members of the opposition who criticised her for her excessive travelling last year, when she chalked up RM5 million in 3 months, purportedly “promoting Malaysian tourism”.

Yen Yen is not one to forget the humiliation she suffered in parliament, when was labeled a “tourist minister” rather than the Tourism minister. She tried very hard to convince her critics that they could not hope to understand her because she claimed she was a “specialist” while they were “generalists”.

Now that her travelling days are hopefully over, perhaps she would like to put to good use, what she has learnt during her time abroad.

For a start, we know she will take great care in proof-reading brochures for promoting Malaysia.

Her ministry had been slammed for errors in the Malaysian tourism promotional brochures which were distributed at the Shanghai World Expo. In addition, the campaigns she conducted at international exhibitions were ineffective and failed to bring in the desired tourist numbers.

Yen Yen should look at the tourism centres around the country. My experience in Perak is that the tourism offices have to order the promotional leaflets from Kuala Lumpur. KL, however, is not forthcoming and at one time, no brochures were sent to the Ipoh tourism office for over a year.

The tourism centre in Ipoh (of which there are two which invariably adds to the confusion because one deals with Perak and the other, located a few miles away deals with only Ipoh tourist attractions) had to photocopy their one good copy to distribute to any tourist who asked for them.

Displays were dusty and out of date. There were no English translations for some of the more interesting artefacts. It was a very amateurish job and plenty of the state’s unsold promotional items during Visit Malaysia year from previous years, lined the shelves.

Few of the staff had been to any of the more major attractions. Some did not know when certain festivals were. Others struggled to make themselves understood in English. They were all very polite and helpful but had little to offer the tourist who is ravenous for discovery.

Yen Yen’s other major task is to ensure better communication between the head office and the regional centres.

Rather than finding fault with PAS, why can’t she make trips by bus, rail, road (without the ministry driver, police escorts and minions in tow), ferry and taxi and find out what it is that the tourist and locals go through.

She could see how badly signposted our tourist attractions are. Moreover, not every tourist reads or understands Bahasa Malaysia. One tourist who was lost could only remember that his hotel was in "Jalan Sehala." Few of our road signs are of an international standard and warning signs are only in Malay.

Does Yen Yen sit with her counterpart in the appropriate ministry about road signs and signboards? Does she communicate with the other ministries about health and safety, transport and other issues? Perhaps this is the time to hammer Muhyiddin Yassin, the education ministry about the importance of languages – English, Japanese and Mandarin.

Many of our hotels and public amenities are not handicapped friendly. The last time I looked, the train link from KLIA to KL Sentral was not disabled user friendly. Our eateries and restaurants are dirty. Our public toilets are a disgrace. Our taxis can be like a ride to hell and people have a fear of taking the coach.

Malaysia has much to offer the foreigner. But they will not come if we are filthy and known as cheats or are not safety conscious. Yen Yen should just shed her international jet-setting image, forego her 6-star dependency and clean up her own house first. Maybe then, the tourists might return. - Malaysia Chronicle