GEORGE TOWN – Penang has questioned the report by the USA Today newspaper which listed Penang’s top tourism landmark as the ninth top “tourist trap” and the 14th “most overrated attraction” in its global survey of some 65 nations.
State exco for tourism Wong Hon Wai said the paper’s review has inherent limitations to it, such as data collection which is monolingual and without other major languages used in the region such as Bahasa Malaysia, Mandarin, Tamil or Arabic.
“The bad reviews are about two dozen and it doesn’t take into consideration many other good reviews about Penang Hill which have far more numbers than the bad ones,” Wong, who also oversees the creative economy portfolio, said in a statement.
Since 1923, there have been 47 million visitors to Penang Hill and that is more than a million visitors annually.
Many of them are returning visitors which shows that they are attracted to the charm of Penang Hill as one of the major attractions.
The numbers of visitors speak for itself, said Wong.
“The state government will always look for improvements and a new cable car project is already in the pipeline. This will give tourists a new experience in the future,” said Wong.
The report last month has stirred up emotions in Penang, with many quarters challenging the validity of the USA Today survey.
Besides Wong’s remarks, Penang Consumers Protection Association president Datuk K. Koris Atan was upset with the report, saying that it was irrelevant to the state.
Koris said that there were better issues for the American publication to pursue.
Penang Hill made it into the top 10 list globally, ninth overall by USA Today, which is distributed in major parts of the country (America) and several locations worldwide, too.
USA Today said it analysed 23.2 million Google reviews of 500 popular tourist attractions in the world, spanning 65 countries on six continents in July 2023, as part of the process of reaching a conclusion to its survey.
The print and digital media had analysed mentions of certain keywords that indicate a common negative sentiment among visitors, such as “tourist trap”, “expensive” and “overrated”, hence the three main categories in the article. – The Vibes, September 27, 2023
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