Last April 2, a news website published a letter with the heading “Wishful thinking won’t boost visitor arrivals”. The writer pointed out that the annual visitor arrivals to Malaysia were below targets for five years in a row.
The targeted numbers were 26.8 million (2013), 28.0 million (2014), 29.4 million (2015), 30.5 million (2016) and 31.8 million (2017), but arrivals were 25,715,460 (2013), 27,437.315 (2014), 25,721,251 (2015), 26,757,392 (2016) and 25,948,459 (2017).
Last July 20, another letter was published online “More likely we’ll get 25m tourists rather than 33m”. But in the following month, two leading local dailies reported that Malaysia is on target to achieve its foreign tourist arrival goal of 33.1 million in 2018.
The projection would have been correct if 8,477,466 foreigners had arrived during the first quarter, but the number was for the first four months of last year. It was a mistake to multiply the figure by four instead of three.
As for Sabah, foreign visitors had grown 2.4 times in the last 10 years. Their numbers were 562,144 (2009), 795,953 (2010), 845,910 (2011), 941,765 (2012), 1,089,320 (2013), 996,522 (2014), 978,426 (2015), 1,128,776 (2016), 1,235,178 (2017) and 1,361.567 (2018).
Although foreign tourist arrivals to Sarawak were much higher than Sabah, the figure had dropped to the level 10 years ago. The numbers were 2,117,442 (2009), 1,897,940 (2010), 2,343,236 (2011), 2,634,715 (2012), 2,664,682 (2013), 2,995,855 (2014), 2,497,016 (2015), 2,258,656 (2016), 2,639,522 (2017) and 2,112,975 (2018).
Total visitor arrival figures to Malaysia for the whole of last year have yet to be released, but it would be no surprise if the number is five million short of the targeted 33.1 million. Instead of being obsessed with visitor arrivals, it is time to accord greater importance to tourism receipts.
There are three main ways to get foreigners to spend more in our country. The first is to induce visitors to stay longer, the second by attracting more high-spending travellers, and third to offer a greater variety of products for tourists to spend on goods and services.
A visitor staying in one or more hotels for 14 nights is equivalent to 14 tourists on overnight stay. A high-flying traveller may spend more on luxury hotel rooms, fancy restaurants and branded items than an entire budget tour group.
But the most effective way for tourists to spend more is making known to them the variety of goods and services available. It is a big loss if they are unaware of the many options and spend time holed up in their hotel rooms, wasting numerous opportunities for greater experiences.
We ought to remember that time is much more precious than money, especially for tourists. The more they spend, the happier they will be. We owe it to them that they get the best value for their time and money, while ensuring their security, safety, comfort and convenience.
If these are not taken into cognisance, then many of our tourism industry players are running around like a headless chicken, making head counts instead of chasing after the tourist dollar. Transformation of our tourism industry will have to start with training.
Instead of limiting to briefings and understanding terms such as ‘experiential tourism’, every participant during training workshops should learn to identify and pledge what they can do individually or by their organisation.
For our tourism industry to move forward, it requires concrete action and concerted efforts by both public and private sectors. Growth cannot be achieved just by being busy as we are going nowhere running around in circles.
But if we continue to dish out more of the same by relying on superficial knowledge and understanding, it will be a matter of time we are left behind by more of our Asean neighbours. For example, merely calling on tourism players to be more creative will not produce the desired results.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the New Sarawak Tribune.
