KUALA LUMPUR – Former tourism and culture minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz has suggested that natural disasters endured by the nation can be utilised to attract tourists if proper planning is carried out.
Labelling the annual floods, which hit certain parts of the country as a “potential tourist attraction”, he said that authorities should see the light during dark times instead of lamenting conditions brought about by nature.
The Umno lawmaker also opined that the floods are an opportunity to promote volunteer tourism, adding that the implementation of prior arrangements would help to realise such ideals.
“Maybe we can have volunteer tourism where people come to the country to help us with the floods. It is not just about them coming here to enjoy, but also for them to learn,” Sinar Daily reported him as saying in an interview.
In December last year, the flood that devastated major parts of the peninsula’s west coast killed more than two dozen people, most of them Shah Alam residents, after their homes were inundated by deadly floodwaters.
According to the Statistics Department, the floods resulted in losses amounting to RM6.1 billion, equivalent to 0.4% of the nominal gross domestic product (GDP).
Public assets and infrastructure suffered the highest loss at RM2 billion, followed by housing (RM1.6 billion) and vehicles (RM1 billion).
Noting that experiential tourists would also be interested in experiencing floods in real life, Nazri, who is Padang Rengas MP, suggested that the drop in the nation’s currency could also be turned into a tourism plus point.
Explaining that this is due to how international tourists would deem the cost of travelling in Malaysia as “cheap” compared to their currency, he claimed that most Singaporeans spend a minimal portion of their salary when visiting Malaysia.
“When our currency falls, it is time for us to promote tourism into the country because it is cheap for them.
“Singaporeans will come because they spend only one-third of their salary and to them, our 5 or 6-star hotels are just so cheap when they come to our country to travel,” he alleged, as quoted by Sinar Daily.
Nazri’s comments come in light of a report by Sinar Harian, which detailed that the massive floods last year might make a reappearance at the end of this year.
Previously, it was reported that Malaysia’s GDP is forecast to grow 7.2% in 2022, driven in part by a recovering tourism sector.
On June 4, current Tourism and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Nancy Shukri said that Malaysia has managed to attract over one million international tourists since the reopening of borders on April 1, a figure which exceeds the government’s target of two million.
She said a large part of the total was from Singapore and it is expected that many more tourists from Japan, Iran, and South Korea will be arriving in Malaysia. – The Vibes, June 18, 2022
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