No News Is Bad News
Penang's capital George Town is one of Malaysia's most popular tourist attractions [Courtesy of Kit Yeng Chan]
Tourism: Penang, Malaysia sleeping on their job
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 5, 2023: Are Malaysia’s Tourism Ministry and Penang sleeping on the job or are there other reasons why it did not capitalise on attracting Chinese tourists.
China’s national news agency Xinhua reported that China’s outbound tourism surged by 20 times for the Golden Week but Malaysia, particularly Penang, failed to capitalise on the resurgent Chinese tourists.
Why have Chinese tourists switched to other destinations after the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic?
Lack of aggressive promotions as reported by Xinhua? Or “Balik Tongshan” (Go Back To China) policy and racial and religious bigots affecting Chinese tourists’ decision-making?
Even Aljazeera is reporting the same about Malaysia’s flagging tourism industry. Is the Penang DAP-led government helmed by Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow and his state executive councillors going to quash or dimiss the two news reports, as they usually do?
Whatever, Malaysia is slowly, but surely, losing ground to attract tourists globally.
Who do we blame?
No News Is Bad News reproduces below the Xinhua and Aljazeera news reports:
China Outbound Tourism Surges By 20 Times For Golden Week, Yet Malaysia Didn’t Capitalise
By Editor
October 1, 2023
Prominent travel platforms reporting full bookings, bustling queues in international departure halls at airports, and Chinese tourists flocking to popular global destinations… China’s outbound tourism market is certainly brimming with exhilaration, this was a statement published by its national news agency Xinhua.
Wang Shihua from Taiyuan, capital of north China’s Shanxi Province, has joined the wave of tourists during the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays, lasting from Sept. 29 to Oct. 6.
After spending the Mid-Autumn Festival, a traditional Chinese festival usually marked by reunions which fell on Friday this year, at home, he flew to Thailand together with his family. During their six-day trip, Wang plans to visit popular attractions including the Grand Palace, as well as savor Thai massage and local cuisine.
“I visited Thailand several years ago, and the experience left me with great memories. Now that my city has opened direct flights to Thailand, I have got to visit it again,” Wang said.
China’s outbound tourism during the National Day “golden week” holiday has shown a “blowout” growth. According to data from China’s leading travel platforms, including Trip.com Group and Fliggy, orders for overseas trips during the eight-day holiday surged nearly 20 times compared with the same period last year.
As one of the most popular destinations for Chinese tourists, Thailand announced a five-month visa-free policy for Chinese tourists in September. Since then, the number of travel inquiries and bookings for the Southeast Asian nation has continued to grow, ranking among the top destinations for outbound travel during the ongoing holiday.
Li Gaochao, assistant general manager of a major international travel agency in Shanxi, said that the visa-free policy saves around 500 yuan (about 69.64 U.S. dollars) in travel costs. After Chinese travel agencies and online tourism service providers resumed offering group tours to an expanded range of countries and regions in August, travel routes to Central and East Africa, as well as Europe, have gained popularity. Additionally, tour packages for Middle Eastern destinations like Dubai were fully booked early September.
Not to mention representatives from numerous countries flocking to China to attract customers, capitalising on the swift resurgence of the country’s outbound tourism market. Recently, the national tourist boards of countries such as Denmark, Finland and Sweden, and the European Travel Commission joined hands with China’s online travel agency Mafengwo to attract tourists to Northern Europe.
In mid-September, the Korea Tourism Organization signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation with Trip.com Group. It is expected that during the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays, the number of outbound tourists to the Republic of Korea will usher in the annual peak.
Industry insiders believe that with the change in consumption preferences, Chinese tourists are more inclined to in-depth experiences and high-quality services, so flexible private group tours have become more popular during this holiday season.
Zhao Wenzhi, president of GZL International Travel Service Ltd., located in south China’s Guangdong Province, said that tourists’ demand for high-end outbound tourism is increasing, and some quality small-group routes with scarce tourism elements are expected to become dark horses over the “golden week.”
Zhao’s viewpoint is backed by data from travel platforms, revealing a substantial increase in the number of group tour bookings to countries such as Uzbekistan, Iran, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Sri Lanka, and Kenya during this period compared to 2019.
Experts pointed out that as the world’s largest source of outbound tourists, China’s resumption of outbound group tours will play a positive role in promoting the recovery of the global tourism industry.
According to the 2023 Global Consumer Insights Survey China Report released by global auditing and consultancy firm PwC, to a much greater extent than their global counterparts, 62 percent of Chinese consumers expected they would increase spending on travel. More than 50 percent of them anticipated they were likely or extremely likely to travel on an international flight in the next six months. It will bring significant opportunities for the global tourism, hospitality, and retail sectors.
Malaysia which was among the earliest to open its borders to tourists failed to capitalise on the last to open its border, China which was the biggest visitor to the country before the pandemic. Being complacent and not having special promotions or aggressive campaigns are among the reasons popular destinations like Penang, Genting, and Kuala Lumpur are seeing a lack of resurgence of Chinese tourists. An English daily reported on 1 October headlined “Where are the Chinese Tourists in Penang For Golden Week?”
The local tourism sector is still reeling from the pandemic-induced shutdown with Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, and Indonesia all vying for a piece of the China action with mega deals and representatives working with Chinese travel agencies, Malaysia needs to step up its game to support our travel industry.
Malaysia’s tourism recovery flops as Thailand, Indonesia cash in
Malaysia is struggling to bring back tourists compared with its Southeast Asian peers after scrapping pandemic curbs.
Penang's capital George Town is one of Malaysia's most popular tourist attractions [Courtesy of Kit Yeng Chan]
Published On 16 Jan 202316 Jan 2023
Correction16 Jan 2023
A previous version of this article misstated that Mount Kinabalu is Southeast Asia's highest peak.
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – For Arthur Wilkinson, a Penang-born entrepreneur who opened Malaysia’s first flotation therapy centre on his tropical island home, nearly two years without tourists marked the end of the road.
Float For Health, located in Tanjung Tokong, a coastal township on the northeastern side of Penang island, shut up shop for good in January 2021 as border restrictions introduced to keep out COVID-19 reduced customers to a trickle.
“Eighty percent of my customers were tourists, and at that time, anyone working in this industry suffered for obvious reasons,” Wilkinson, who also runs the restaurant Heap Seng at 29 in George Town, told Al Jazeera.
Malaysia reopened its borders to tourists in April, before dropping all vaccination and PCR-test requirements in August.
But nearly a year since hailing the return of international visitors, Malaysia’s tourism sector is not only struggling but playing catchup to its Southeast Asian peers.
Malaysia welcomed about 3 million visitors in 2022, up from 134,728 visitors the previous year, according to Tourism Malaysia. The intake was just about 12 percent of the number that arrived in 2019.
Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia — which welcomed 10 million, 4.6 million and 4.58 million visitors, respectively — saw arrivals return to about one-quarter of pre-pandemic levels.
Vietnam’s 3.6 million foreign visitors, although short of the government’s target, was about one-fifth of its intake in 2019.
Traditional Malaysian homes are popular with tourists in Langkawi [Courtesy of Kit Yeng Chan)
Tourist industry figures have offered a range of explanations for Malaysia’s weak rebound from the pandemic compared with its neighbours, from poor cost competitiveness to the country’s reputation as a buttoned-up, predominantly Islamic society. Tourism Malaysia declined to comment.
Earlier this month, the Malaysian Islamic Party-backed state government in Kedah, home to the popular duty-free resort island Langkawi, caused jitters in the tourism sector when it floated a possible ban on alcohol sales.
Kedah Chief Minister Datuk Seri Muhammad Sanusi Md later clarified that the sale of alcohol in Langkawi is under the jurisdiction of the Finance Ministry, not the state government, and the state government had no authority to interfere with the tourist island’s duty-free status.
Malaysia already has some of the world’s highest alcohol taxes and imposes harsh punishments for drug offences, including the death penalty for trafficking.
Neighbouring Thailand, meanwhile, has built on its reputation for having a tolerant attitude towards vices, decriminalising cannabis in June 2022.
“From mid-December to mid-March, I used to have 80-90 percent of clients from Europe, and now I only have about 60 percent,” Anthony Wong, owner of Frangipani Langkawi Resort & Spa, one of the island’s oldest eco-resorts, told Al Jazeera.
“Flights to Malaysia from Europe are less [frequent] and more expensive, and Langkawi is not as cheap as its neighbours, especially the accommodation. … Europe is also going into recession, with inflation going up, and issues related to the ongoing war in Ukraine make it more challenging for them to spend money on travelling,” Wong said.
Wilkinson, who relocated his flotation therapy business to Indonesia’s Bali to take advantage of the higher tourist numbers and what he said was more dependable labour, said Malaysia could not afford to be complacent about its attractiveness to foreign visitors.
“We need to stimulate tourism somehow before it’s too late, as Malaysia is losing massively to Thailand and Indonesia,” he said.
“Even though Malaysia has a much wider variety of cuisines, our food and beverage scene and quality isn’t quite up to par compared to our neighbours, which also have lower alcohol tax and are more open to new ideas of tourism.”
Penang entrepreneur Arthur Wilkinson believes Malaysia needs to do more to attract tourists back to its shores [Courtesy of Arthur Wilkinson]
Fabio Delisi, manager of Kuala Lumpur-based inbound tour operator Lotus Asia Tours, said he believes Malaysia’s potential has been held back by lacklustre promotion and relatively poor connectivity compared with other parts of the region.
“Malaysia does not lack attractions, especially natural ones. Tourism development suffers from inconsistent policies and promotional activities over the past decades,” Delisi, who has more than 30 years of experience in tourism across the region, told Al Jazeera. “Tourism is a very long-term public relation exercise.”
Delisi, whose company also operates in Indonesia and Singapore, said Malaysia’s fortunes have stood in stark contrast to those of Indonesia.
“We are wholesalers operating in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore since the early nineties, and in 2022 have experienced a decline of arrivals of up to 90 percent from our main Western markets into Malaysia, while we have seen double-digit growth in Indonesia for the same period,” he said.
In East Malaysia, which is separated from Peninsular Malaysia by the South China Sea, there are signs that tourism is rebounding much faster.
Operators there have benefitted from a niche market of high-spending Westerners seeking out tropical adventures in Malaysia’s eastern states on the island of Borneo, which is renowned for its wildlife and unspoiled nature.
“We hit the same revenue as 2019 last year despite it being an eight-month operation,” Jessica Yew, director of boutique tour company Sticky Rice Travel, which has its headquarters in Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah state, told Al Jazeera.
“It’s mostly because of our market segment. [We cater to the] high-end/deluxe US market — the pandemic had little to no effect on their finances, and they were just waiting for the border to reopen. Europeans and British inquiries trickle in, but closing the sale for these is harder.”
For those with less to spend, travel and accommodation costs in Borneo, which are at their highest in years, could be off-putting.
“Most lodges and transport providers introduced a hike of up to 20 percent, while government agencies such as Sabah Parks doubled the price of some permits and entrances,” Yew said.
Sabah-based tour operator Jessica Yew says her business has emerged from the pandemic in a strong position due to the high-spending US market [Courtesy of Jessica Yew]
The higher prices include permits to climb Mount Kinabalu, Malaysia’s highest peak standing at 4,095 metres (13,435 feet), which this month doubled from 200 ringgit to 400 ringgit ($46 to $92).
When added to the costs of guides, food, and accommodation, the cheapest packages to tackle the summit come to about $550 per person.
While Sabah is generally cheap outside conservation areas, only some of the state’s protected parks are promoted by authorities as the main selling points for visitors.
“I tell people to go to Sumatra [in Indonesia] to see orangutans, as it costs one-third to one-fifth of Malaysian Borneo’s prices,” Yew said.
For many other operators, the return of Chinese and South Korean visitors, the biggest cohort of visitors to Sabah before the pandemic, will be crucial to their fortunes in the coming year.
Businesses, in particular, are keeping a close watch on China’s reopening of its borders last week after three years of international isolation.
Still, some within the sector are sceptical of any quick fix to the sector’s struggles.
“We are paying the price for more than twenty years of random policies without focus and continuity,” said Delisi of Lotus Asia Tours.
“Despite the effort of a number of good technocrats, without a framed, coordinated and consistent strategy, I don’t see how things may change or improve soon.”
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
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