I refer to the report ‘GPS to develop tourism in Belawai: Len’ and ‘Irresponsible tourists under fire’ published on July 7. At the recent launch of Belawai Beach Carnival, Urban Planning, Land Administration and Environment Assistant Minister Datuk Len Talif Salleh said Belawai might be called a mini Hawaii with the completion of infrastructure and development within the next few years.
During a clean-up campaign, Padawan Municipal Council chairman and Batu Kitang assemblyman Lo Khere Chiang hit out at irresponsible tourists who left behind garbage such as plastic wastes and empty bottles at local waterfalls.
He said dirty tourist areas are bad for Padawan’s image as a tourist attraction and appealed to foreign and local visitors to help keep the environment and tourist spots clean and hygienic, calling on them to fulfil his or her social responsibility to protect tourist areas and mother nature.
To develop tourism well, the authorities, industries, institutions and students ought to have a better understanding of what constitutes tourism and who are tourists. Those who could only describe using academic definitions or interchanging terms freely showed lack of clarity.
Visitors staying overnight are tourists, while day-trippers are excursionists. Interestingly, licensing of tour buses is under Bas Persiaran (excursion bus), and not Bas Pelancong (tourist bus).
Two government authorities that churn out tourism statistics regularly use terms such as visitors, tourists and excursionists correctly. They are Tourism Malaysia and Department of Statistics, the former on foreign tourists and the latter on domestic visitors.
Last year, 25,832,354 foreign tourists entered our country and stayed for at least one night. The figure excluded excursionists from Thailand, Singapore and Brunei making day trips to Malaysia, the overwhelming number by road.
The 2018 Domestic Tourism Survey was posted by the Department of Statistics on its website on June 30, as it does annually. The report estimated there were 221.3 million domestic visitors, and traditionally two-thirds are excursionists and one-third tourists or 73,766,592.
Instead of describing tourism as “the activities of people traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for leisure, business or other purposes for not more than one consecutive year”, it is more meaningful to look at tourist expenditure components.
In the first quarter of this year, foreigners spent most on shopping (RM7.05 billion), followed by accommodation (RM5.15 billion), food & beverage (RM2.38 billion), local transport (RM1.63 billion), organised tour (RM1.22 billion), medical (RM1.20 billion), international airfares (RM1.16 billion), domestic airfares (RM0.71 billion), entertainment (RM0.54 billion), fuel for self-drive vehicles (RM0.06 billion), sports (RM0.02 billion) and others (RM0.32 billion).
As for domestic visitors for the whole of last year, 37.6 percent of their total RM92.5 billion expenditure were on shopping, 14.7 percent on fuel for their vehicles, 13.8 percent for food and beverage, 10.6 percent on households and only 8.5 percent on accommodation.
Even less were spent on public transportation at 6.2 percent, other activities at 5.3 percent and before the trip expenses, entrance fees, tickets and tour packages combined at 3.2 percent. In other words, domestic visitors did mostly Do-It-Yourself (DIY) arrangements but the RM92.5 billion spent contributed significantly to the nation’s economy.
Domestic tourism does not include leisure activities by residents such as spending time at a local amusement park, bowling arcade, beach or waterfall. Both tourism and leisure encompass a huge variety of sectors and overlap many industries. We are at leisure when not at work.
Decades ago, access roads to waterfalls were built in the name of tourism development when they were meant for people to enjoy nature and leisure activities for free. It did not take long for such pristine places to be turned into garbage dumps.
Unfinished food and wrappings attract all kinds of animals, particularly rodents along with its deadly urine. Many people with open wounds walking on infested soil or ingesting contaminated stream water have died of rat urine.
It must be remembered that tourism is business and sustainable only if practised responsibly. Expecting all visitors to behave would be naïve. Every tourist spot must have a caretaker. In cities and towns, maintenance works are carried out by city hall and municipal council workers.
At waterfalls easily accessible to the public, concessionaires should be appointed allowing them to build and operate a food outlet for free in exchange for looking after the cleanliness of the entire area. If space permits and damage to the environment is minimal, chalets may be built.
Any destination that wishes to develop the tourism industry must focus on tourist expenditure components of foreign tourists as reported by Tourism Malaysia or domestic visitors’ expenditure components by Department of Statistics.
Development of tourism products should be targeted at niche markets. It cannot be generalised or one size fits all.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the New Sarawak Tribune.
