Video by Roystein Emmor
KUCHING: Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah hopes that the federal government can provide assistance for the tourism industry in Malaysia to deal with the effects of the Wuhan coronavirus (2019-nCoV).
Abdul Karim acknowledged that the novel coronavirus outbreak in China had resulted in a tough time, particularly for the tourism industry, with many inbound and outbound bookings being cancelled and resulting in loss of opportunities for tourism industry players.
“Many of the tourism industry players like hotels, airlines as well as tour and travel operators have been affected since their business and operations rely on tourists. If this goes on, they will suffer.
“But Malaysia has undergone a similar situation during the SARS outbreak previously where there was some assistance given by the government (to the tourism industry), in this case the federal government. So I hope that the federal government can look into this,” Abdul Karim said this during a press conference after a dialogue session with tourism industry players at Baitulmakmur Complex here earlier today.
Abdul Karim also suggested that the federal government could emulate the Singaporean government’s move in waiving licence fees for hotels, travel agents and tour guides to help the country’s tourism sector.
“I think that the federal government can look into this, because most of these licence fees comes under the purview of the Ministry of Tourism. If they can come up with a stimulus package or soft loan or a temporary waiver of all these licencing fees, it might do a lot of good for the tourism industry,” he added.
He also expressed his hope that airlines, hotels and transportation companies could give their due consideration to passengers and tour agencies who had to cancel flights or hotel bookings due to the novel coronavirus outbreak.
“Wherever feasible, refunds or extension of validity should be considered,” he said.
According to Abdul Karim, tourists from China accounted for about two per cent of Sarawak’s total international arrivals, with as many as 39,933 visitors to Sarawak in 2019.