THE tourism tax will be enforced on July 1. The rates are between RM20 for a 5-star hotel and RM2.50 for an unrated hotel for each night’s stay. Tourism and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Aziz said that the tax collected can amount to RM654 million if the occupancy rate is at 60 per cent.
According to the Royal Malaysian Customs Department website, the tax will be used to develop the tourism industry, namely in the enhancement of tourism infrastructure and facilities as well as promotional activities and campaigns for the country.
I view this new tax regime with mixed emotions from disabled people’s perspective. Firstly, our daily living expenses have increased since the implementation of the goods and services tax (GST). Secondly, many of the necessities we cannot do without like diapers, catheters, lubricants, and urine bags have seen a marked increase in prices.
Still reeling from the effects of GST, our stretched finances will suffer another dent with the implementation of the tourism tax. Although the tax may seem like a small amount but it does add up. This will definitely curtail our desire to go sightseeing around the country.
Tourism tax is also a misnomer. We don’t always stay at hotels purely for the sake of sightseeing and leisure. The majority of the times I stayed at hotels were for work like attending conferences and conducting workshops. This will increase our expenses and cost of doing business.
Our mobility in major cities is already restricted due to the multiple barriers in the built environment and transportation. This limitation is even more apparent in smaller towns and the rural areas where such facilities are severely lacking.
Sightseeing should be relaxing and gratifying for most but for disabled people we have to plan far ahead. We need to look for suitable hotels that fit our budget and check out destinations we are interested in exploring to make sure they have amenities we can use.
Hotels generally have a limited number of wheelchair accessible rooms. Sometimes, even these designated rooms are unsuitable due to poor design and non-adherence to the prescribed code of practice. When this happens, bathing, toileting and even brushing teeth can be a great challenge.
I once stayed at a 5-star hotel in Kuala Lumpur where the only way to get into the shower stall was up a steep ramp and through an impossibly narrow doorway. I did not get to bathe the two days I was there and had to make do with wiping with a wet towel.
We often have to incur extra expenses in hiring suitable vehicles to take us around owing to the absence of accessible public transport and poor connectivity. The rental for a lift van that can accommodate a wheelchair can set us back at least RM600 per day. Travelling for us can be very expensive due to these factors.
Many of the popular tourist destinations are not friendly to disabled people. Proper pavements we can use safely and conveniently, and accessible toilets are hard to come by. We usually spend a large amount of time hunting for these facilities, which leaves us little time to enjoy the scenery. My major gripe is pavements with a kerb ramp for going up on one end and no ramp to get down at the other end.
When I visited the historic A Famosa in Melaka, I could not find a toilet I could use in the vicinity. It took me 45 minutes crisscrossing the city looking for a shopping mall or hotel. In the end, I stopped by a hotel with a steep ramp at the entrance to use the toilet with great difficulty because it was not fitted correctly for use by disabled people.
Therefore, I find it preposterous to have to pay a tourism tax when we have to face so many difficulties while playing tourists in our own country. Before anyone says the tax will also be used to make tourist destinations accessible, they should see how disabled people as taxpayers at the federal and local government levels have been short-changed by the dearth of accessible facilities.
If the government is determined to develop tourism in the country, it should seriously consider developing accessible tourism. We have a saying that what is good for disabled people is good for everyone else. When tourist destinations are made accessible, we get to enjoy the same experiences as non-disabled people.
Accessible tourism is not only making facilities usable by disabled people at tourist destinations. There must be unimpeded connectivity from point to point in public transport and safe pavements for pedestrians. I am embarrassed to say I enjoyed travelling and sightseeing more in Tokyo than in Kuala Lumpur or anywhere else in Malaysia.
This is due to the ease at which I could move around visiting the various sights the two times I was there. Even heritage buildings like the Senso-ji, the oldest temple in Tokyo founded in 654 AD, was surprisingly accessible to wheelchair users. This is something we can emulate in our heritage buildings.
Despite my reservations, the implementation of the tourism tax is inevitable. I sincerely hope the tax will be utilised to make major improvements in the areas I have mentioned. RM654 million is a lot of money. This is a good opportunity to make our tourism industry accessible and inclusive. And please, no other new taxes after this. We are burdened enough as it is.