Full lockdown will be more effective, say hoteliers

 

The Malaysian Association of Hotels says curbing infections quickly would allow borders to reopen, without which their business would collapse.

PETALING JAYA: Hoteliers have called for a full lockdown to curb Covid-19 infections, instead of introducing stricter restrictions under the current movement control order.

However, in a separate statement, finance minister Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz said 2.8 million high-risk informal workers would lose their source of income, and 1 million would be unemployed if the economy was closed.

The Malaysian Association of Hotels had said that the tourism and hotel industries would not survive if domestic and international borders remained closed.

Their survival depended on the country’s ability to curb the spread of the virus as soon as possible, which would then enable travel restrictions to be eased. Restrictions on business hours and office capacity would only prolong the situation, MAH said.

It said the hotel industry has incurred RM5 billion in losses since January, compared to RM6.53 billion for 2020. About RM300 million was lost for every two weeks of the movement control order, affecting some 3.6 million workers.

The association also called for more government assistance to hotels.

Finance minister Tengku Zafrul, explaining the need to avoid a full lockdown, said it would cause more harm to the people “while the social impact will take a long time to recover”.

Tengku Zafrul said 68% of businesses had reported no sales or revenue when the movement control order began in March last year, while 42.5% of businesses needed more than six months to recover, and two out of three businesses had outstanding debts within six months.

Earlier today, senior minister for security Ismail Sabri Yaakob announced tighter movement restrictions and said the government had decided against implementing a full lockdown in order to maintain people’s livelihoods. - FMT