Much to do for 'Visit Malaysia Year' to be a success

FOCUS For Dutch backpack traveller Lorriane van Gelder, who has been in Kuala Lumpur for four days, finding pedestrian walkways to experience the hustle and bustle of the city on foot is a near impossible task.

“Pedestrian walkway? I haven’t found any. It feels like walking around the city is impossible... I think Kuala Lumpur is a scary city for pedestrians,” she said.

Van Gelder also complained about the reckless car drivers, who refuse to give way even for pedestrians on pedestrian crossings.

And, moving from the capital city to George Town, the 29-year-old recalled a nauseating experience: a rat scrounging for food as she was having meal at a roadside hawker stall along Chulia Street in George Town.

And all this feedback comes just as the federal government is about to launch Visit Malaysia Year (VMY) 2014 in a few days’ time - the regular tourism project themed “Celebrating 1Malaysia, Truly Asia” that is implemented on a huge scale, worldwide.

To materialise the project, more than 200 mega carnival and tourism activities will be taking place nationwide to attract 28.8 million foreign tourists to visit the country and generate RM76 billion in revenue.

This is the fourth time the country is organising a VMY project, according to the official data, after the inaugural VMY in 1990, followed by another in 1994 and the third during the 50th year Merdeka anniversary in 2007.

Besides the poor standard of road structure and hygiene, the recent abduction of a Taiwanese tourist on an island off Sabah, as well as the demolition of the centuries-old candi (ancient tomb temple) in Bujang Valley, Kedah, have greatly tarnished Malaysia’s image as a major tourist attraction.

Improve transport system

Despite the unlimited potential for tourism development, Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (Matta) president Hamzah Rahmat said the country was troubled by a “lame” road structure and public transport system.

In a recent interview with Malaysiakini, Hamzah said most of the taxi drivers in the country are still notorious for their bad attitude, as a result of which even the local people were not willing to use the service.

“The biggest problem is, a number of taxi drivers even refuse to abide by the taxi meter rule. Some have even cheated foreign tourists by charging them ridiculous fares...

“However, it seems like the enforcement units do not take this seriously,” Hamzah said, noting that neighbouring countries such as Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand do better in taxi services.

Snatch theft nightmares

Apart from that, the worrying crime rate, especially the cases of snatch theft, have become a matter of growing concern for foreign tourists recently, with many of them ending up being attacked along their journeys in Malaysia.

In Penang in January this year, German tourist Regina Frenzel fell to the ground on Muntri Street after a snatch thief grabbed her waist pouch. Two passers-by across the road witnessed the assault but did not offer any help.

Four months after that, a tourist from China tourist was dragged some 15 metres as a snatch thief on motorbike grabbed her bag, along  in Jonker Street in Malacca.

Though Tourism and Culture Minister Nazri Abdul Aziz had once urged the police to enhance security in tourism hotspots,, such as Bukit Bintang in Kuala Lumpur, after receiving numerous complaints from foreign tourists, nothing has changed.

Poor security off the Sabah coast

In fact, rampant snatch thefts are merely the tip of the iceberg, not to mention the poor security situation along the coast off Sabah, with the intrusion of Philippine terrorists threatening the safety of foreign tourists.

Taiwanese Evelyn Chang, 58, and her husband Hsu Li-min were on a holiday on Pom Pom Island, off Sabah and close to the Sulu islands of the Philippines, when a group of gunmen attacked on Nov 15.

They killed Chang’s husband and kidnapped her. She was eventually returned home safely, by the Philippines military, after she had been held in abduction for 36 days.

Defence analyst Lam Choong Wah told Malaysiakini that safety offshore Sabah has caused a great impact to the tourism industry there.

“If government were to strengthen military deployment at tourism hotspots, the tourists will panic, resulting in a big drop in tourism in the region,” he said.

Giving an example, Lam said the Malaysian Armed Forces have set up a major, long-term deployment at Pulau Sipadan, an island renowned as a “diving haven”.

However, the military presence is not welcomed by the local tourism stakeholders who claimed the tourists were very uneasy about the high military presence.

Lam also criticised the poor coastal defence presence in Sabah, saying that the government did not take the crisis seriously by tracing the root cause of the threats from the militants.

The Defence Ministry, he said, has not seemed to have learnt any lesson from the intrusion into Lahad Datu by the Sulu militants earlier this year, for there is only a  30 percent military deployment in East Malaysia, with the much safer peninsula seeing a 70 percent military deployment.

This is an imbalance in the provision of security, he said, adding that “the worst part is that the ministry does not have enough military vessels for 24-hour patrolling in the waters, leaving some time slots for intrusion,” Lam said.

In March this year, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region issued the “Amber Alert” on travel to Malaysia, following the intrusion into Lahad Datu by the Sulu militant group, and advised its citizens to “monitor the situation and exercise caution”.

However, Lam had pointed out, the Malaysian government officers stuck to their bureaucratic role and kept giving assurances to the people, without taking much realistic efforts in the area of security.

“Just look at Lahad Datu case, (the then tourism minister) Dr Ng Yen Yen continued to claim that Sabah is safe and invited tourists to come. This is logically wrong,” he said.

Bujang Valley fiasco a major embarrassment

Besides security issues, the government has been facing challenges in balancing tourism promotion and social development, and this was recently seen in the destruction of an ancient temple by a developer that attracted international attention.

Lamenting the incident, heritage conservationist Teoh Chee Keong said the government should not neglect a single heritage site in the country, including the centuries-old Bujang Valley that symbolises a civilisation that is even older than Cambodia’s Angkor Wat.

Teoh said the heritage-based tourism industry should be supported by local living culture and true history, before it is presented to the foreigners.

Before the Bujang Valley fiasco, Malaysian heritage tourism was highly complemented, with Unesco having listed Penang and Malacca as world heritage sites.

However, Teoh said, the state governments seem to have “consumed” but not “conserved” the heritage sites over the years due to inefficient heritage management policies.

He explained that flourishing economic activities have threatened the heritage sites, causing local residents to be sidelined as investors romped in.

“Tourists arrivals enhance the economy and this increases consumer demands. The mushrooming of budget hotels, cafes and restaurants causes drastic increases in property prices and locals who can’t afford it anymore are forced to move out.

“Look at Malacca. The locals seldom dine in the old town, which is flooded by tourists. The place is no longer suitable for peaceful living,” Teoh said.

Contacting officers an obstacle

In a bid to get an official response, Malaysiakini spent almost a month trying to contact Nazri and Yen Yen, but all our efforts ended without any response from them.

However, Tourism Ministry deputy marketing director Chong Yoke Har, who was met at a function last week, conceded that the out-of-control political unrest and safety problems were   causes for concern among tourists

Chong said there were significant numbers of travel plan cancellations after the kidnapping case in Pom Pom Island last month.

“However, the Sabah Tourism Board is doing well. It collaborates with hoteliers to beef up security,” she said.

A contingency plan of the board, Chong said, was to provide more travel options in the state, such as encouraging tourists to visit Kota Kinabalu and Sandakan, which are not in the danger zone.

Asked whether this was to escape the islands off Sabah, Chong denied this. She said the aim was to provide more choices and stressing that the relevant ministries were working hand-in-hand to make VMY 2014 a success.

“Combatting crime is part of the National Key Results Area (NKRA). We want to ensure that travellers feel safe when they come to Malaysia,” she added.

Undoubtedly, Malaysia, which has diverse and exotic cultures, as well as natural beauty, deserves the enormous compliment of being “truly Asia”, but still, there is much room for improvement.

It is time for the government to turn defects into perfection, so as to show that we are a warm-hearted host in a peaceful land. Or else, VMY 2014 will end up becoming another  large-scale, meretricious project.

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KOW KWAN YEE is a member of the Malaysiakini team.