No News Is Bad News
USA Today: Penang Hill is Asia’s worst tourist trap, second most overrated destination
KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 26, 2023: USA Today has named Penang Hill as Asia’s worst tourist trap
(a place that attracts many tourists and where goods and services are more expensive than normal).
And it also rated Penang Hill as the second most overrated tourist destination.
Do Malaysians, especially Penangites, agree with USA Today?
Whatever, it will do well for the DAP-led Penang unity government to treat the rating seriously and take remedial measures if necessary.
Will Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow really understand what needs to be corrected or improved?
Or will he and his state executive councillors continue to rest on their laurels and ignore the matter raised by USA Today?
One thing is certain. Penang Hill needs more services to satisfy the expectations of tourists who allocate much of their precious time to go up the hill.
No News Is Bad News reproduces below what was reported on Penang Hill:
UPDATE
No News Is Bad News: As expected, Penang government slams USA Today, instead of taking the criticisms positively and act accordingly wherever reuired. The DAP-led government is looking to be no different from the Barisan Nasional (BN) administration.
Exco man dismisses Penang Hill’s ‘tourist trap’ label by US daily
Wong Hon Wai says USA Today’s finding doesn’t take into account reviews made in languages other than English.
FMT Reporters - 26 Sep 2023, 5:26pm
Penang tourism committee chairman Wong Hon Wai said the nearly 50 million visitors to Penang Hill over the past 100 years was proof of its popularity. (Bernama pic)
GEORGE TOWN: A state executive councillor has dismissed an American newspaper’s label of Penang Hill as a “tourist trap”, saying it is a conclusion reached after poor research.
State tourism committee chairman Wong Hon Wai said the research by USA Today, which was based on testimonies left on Google, was flawed as it only considered English reviews.
Stay up-to-date by following FMT's Telegram channel
Last month, the newspaper published its “Top 100 biggest tourist traps worldwide”, in which Penang Hill was ranked ninth.
USA Today said it reached the conclusion after searching for the phrases “tourist trap,” “overrated” or “expensive” in reviews left on Google in July, after which it divided the number of mentions by the total number of reviews.
“The bad reviews are about two dozen, and it (USA Today) didn’t take into consideration the many other good reviews about Penang Hill – which outnumbers the bad ones,” Wong said in a statement.
Wong said there have been nearly 50 million visitors to Penang Hill ever since the funicular railway began in 1923, with many repeat visitors.
“This shows that they are attracted to the hill station’s charm. The number of visitors speaks for itself,” he said.
The colonial-era hill station has a history going back to 1738.
It was initially cleared for the British colonial community to enjoy the cooler air of the hill.
Previous reports stated that a RM285 million Penang Hill cable car project was expected to be ready by 2025.
Penang Hill is the country’s third national biosphere reserve after Tasik Chini in Pahang and the Crocker Range in Sabah under Unesco’s Man and Biosphere programme.
USA Today Names Penang Hill Asia’s Worst Tourist Trap & Second Most Overrated Destination
Published
4 hours ago
September 26, 2023
By Jamie
Internationally distributed American daily newspaper USA Today recently released an article listing the top 100 biggest tourist traps worldwide, aiming to arm tourists with the information they “need before planning to visit a popular tourist destination”.
In the article, the publication also listed the top 100 most overpriced attractions and the top 100 most overrated attractions worldwide based on their analysis of 23.2 million Google reviews.
Usa today’s top 100 worst tourist traps globally
Given our country’s popularity among global travellers, it was no surprise that a tourist spot in Malaysia made it to the list, but the place itself may come as a surprise to many: Penang Hill.
In fact, not only did Penang Hill was included in the list, but USA Today also placed it as the worst tourist trap in Asia and 9th in the world.
Usa today’s top 100 overrated tourist attractions globally
Furthermore, the publication also put the Penang tourist attraction as the 2nd most overrated tourist attraction in Asia and 14th globally, as well as the 64th most overpriced in the world.
So, how did USA Today compiled the list and ended up having Penang Hill as the worst tourist trap in Asia? Well, the publication said that it analysed 23.2 million Google reviews of 500 popular tourist attractions in the world, spanning 65 countries in 6 continents in July 2023.
Usa today’s top 100 overpriced tourist attractions globally
The publication then analysed mentions of certain keywords that indicate a common negative sentiment among visitors, such as “tourist trap”, “expensive” and “overrated”, hence the 3 main categories in the article.
Besides that, USA Today also clarified that the list started with 1,600 tourist attractions and then narrowed down to 500 spots, which would explain why Penang Hill was the only Malaysian tourist attraction in all 3 categories.
Source: Trip.com
With that in mind, while the methodology was quite data-based, the list itself seems to be rather subjective and has many flaws. For example, only Google reviews written in English were analysed and also included the use of the keywords in a positive context (for example, “It’s kind of a tourist trap but we loved it”) in creating the list. For the latter, USA Today said that these instances of usage were not frequent enough to be statistically significant.
Besides that, it is also worth mentioning that Penang Hill was named Asia’s worst tourist trap based on just 21 mentions of the keyword “tourist trap” in a mere 3,737 Google reviews (0.56% frequency). The 21 mentions when viewed across all the 100 tourist destinations mentioned are among the fewest in the list.
Source: Viator
So, what do you guys think of these findings by USA Today? Do you agree with Penang Hill’s placement? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.
No comments:
Post a Comment