KOTA KINABALU: The government must ensure it has good control of security in Sabah before it encourages tourists to visit the state, said Datuk James Hwong, Malaysia-China Chamber of Commerce (MCCC) Sabah honorary advisor.
He urged the government to resolve the security issues in Sabah as they would affect the tourism industry and foreign investments.
Hwong said the government should only encourage tourists to visit Sabah when it was sure that our state was safe.
“Kota Kinabalu is safe. We can encourage them to visit the west coast of Sabah.
“As long as the east coast is under curfew, it means that it is still unsafe and we should not encourage tourists to visit (the east coast),” he said after meeting a group of delegates from the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of Shenzhen Municipal People’s Government here yesterday.
Hwong said Sabah should promote its tourism industry in a positive way, such as its beautiful natural resources, and must not resort to promoting gambling or sex tourism like the Philippines and Thailand.
Meanwhile, Hwong pointed out that Malaysia Airlines (MAS) and its management should not be blamed for the disappearance of flight MH370 and the downing of MH17.
He said no one had wanted both incidents to happen and that nothing could be done to avert the tragedies.
Hwong said both incidents reflected how different Chinese citizens and the Dutch handled and reacted to the tragedies.
He said there had been a lot of finger pointing in the MH370 incident while on the other hand, the citizens and the media in Netherlands did not blame MAS. In fact, the remains of the MH17 victims were treated with the highest respect as they arrived in Holland.
He said the culture of Chinese citizens should improve as their wealth grew.
“We have much to learn from the Netherlands in terms of how they handled this (tragedy).”