Two years ago, I was at Pangkor Island to train taxi drivers there to take on the role of tourist drivers. This will empower them to show visitors the various places of interest and earn higher income than merely providing transport.
This initiative was made possible by a team of competent personnel that had the passion to develop the National Competency Standard (NCS) for tourist drivers and had earlier conducted tourist driver training at Merbok in Kedah.
The NCS is one of the many programmes under the Department of Skills Development, better known as Jabatan Pembangunan Kemahiran (JPK), an important agency under the Ministry of Human Resources, Malaysia.
To reach Pangkor, I drove from Kuala Lumpur to Lumut and took me more than three hours to cover the 230km. But with the completion of the West Coast Highway about to open soon, motorists may take only 90 minutes, a little longer than to Port Dickson in Negeri Sembilan.
Lumut is a serene costal town 84km west of Ipoh, the capital for Perak state. After conducting training at Pangkor, I drove from Lumut to Ipoh to facilitate a Travel and Tours Enhancement Course, which travel agents must attend to renew their company licence.
The journey took an hour and 40 minutes, slowed down by 29 traffic lights. From Lumut, Pangkor is just a short ferry ride away and the tickets cover both ways. Upon reaching the island, the large number of dilapidated pink-colour taxi vans parked near the jetty was a sorry spectacle.
An uglier sight was touts actively soliciting for business with taxi drivers watching helplessly. I witnessed the same upon arrival at Langkawi airport in October 2016 when I was there to attend a two-week Asean Master Tourism Trainer programme.
Other than the poor first impression of Pangkor, I was totally enchanted by this small island. At only 18 sq km, it is inhabited by 30,000 people and an interesting variety of wildlife, including 65 species of reptiles and 17 species of amphibians.
It is a haven for nature lovers as virgin jungle covers more than 80 percent of the island. But this tropical paradise would soon be lost in the name of tourism, as unbridled development would be disastrous without a master plan or feasibility study on the island’s carrying capacity.
Pangkor may end up like Boracay, a 10 sq km holiday island in the Philippines that President Rodrigo Duterte once described the water around the island as a cesspool, as sewage was dumped into the sea.
Last April, the entire island had to be closed and after massive rehabilitation, it was reopened six months later and the number of people on the island limited to 19,000 visitors and 15,000 workers at any given time.
In recent years, Pangkor received more than a million visitors annually, and the number of excursionists and overnight tourists could easily double or triple by 2020, with large number of Klang Valley residents making their way to Pangkor for the clean beaches and clear waters.
But the greatest number of visitors would be shopping-mad Malaysians that would turn up in droves from January 1, 2020 when Pangkor is declared duty-free, even though the exemption is for Sales and Services Tax (SST) only and does not include tobacco, alcohol and vehicles.
Recently, Perak State Tourism, Arts and Culture Committee chairperson Tan Kar Hing announced plans to upgrade the Pangkor Airport to attract more local and foreign tourists to the island. But any increase in air traffic is likely to upset the delicate balance of the fragile ecosystem there.
He was reported to have said “I think this should be done because Pulau Pangkor will become one of the duty-free islands and be a focus of tourists, particularly local visitors”. Only three islands off the west coast of peninsular Malaysia are accessible by regular flights, and they are Langkawi, Penang and Pangkor.
But in the haste to develop Pangkor, the State Government seems to have ignored what happened to Pulau Sembilan, located 10 nautical miles further south. This tiny island is blessed with stunning rock formations, beautiful beaches and unusual “blue tears” of seawater that appear at night due to bioluminescent phytoplankton.
Up to 400 tourists used to swarm the island daily, when the capacity and ruling was set for 120 people, damaging the pristine white sandy beach and threatening to wipe out the planktons. In March 2017, the Perak State Government had to close the island indefinitely to visitors.
Also, it is imperative that the local authorities do not repeat mistakes made in Langkawi, which could absorb the brunt better than Pangkor, as the size of the main island alone is 320 sq km, 18 times larger than Pangkor at only 18 sq km.
Visitors at the popular Jalan Pantai Cenang in Langkawi do not feel like they are at a seaside resort, and a picture of the street would look like any other inland town. This is because shops and buildings line both sides of the street, with no view of the sea or sound of the waves.
From the very beginning, there should have been no construction from the shore to the road, so that pedestrians, shoppers, diners, guests and residents could enjoy an unobstructed view of the beach, boats and sea. If Pantai Cenang had developed along this concept, it would now be known as the Golden Mile of Langkawi.
Instead, the stretch is not appealing to foreign tourists who have been to better seaside resorts, and too expensive for most domestic visitors, as prices are much lower in Kuah town. Near Pantai Cenang is Pantai Tengah, with an array of empty or abandoned shops and restaurants.
The total number of visitors to Langkawi has stagnated at around 3.6 million a year. As such, the authorities should decide on the targeted growth of visitors to Pangkor to ensure sustainability, as the small island already houses 30,000 residents.
As such, the powers that be must initiate concerted efforts to ensure that the impending tourism boom in Pangkor bring benefits to both locals and visitors alike. A free-for-all situation would not only disrupt the island’s tranquility, but also cause irreversible destruction to the ecosystem, and corrupt the rich culture and traditions of the islanders.
Extra effort must be made to ensure the beach and sea are kept clean and unpolluted, the existing virgin jungle conserved, and no man-made structures constructed in or near them in the name of tourism, including signage and information boards.
Tourists should only be allowed into the hilly jungle escorted by locals trained as nature guides to ensure minimal disturbance to the flora and fauna. The jungle should never be used for picnics, as garbage would attract rodents that secrete deadly rat urine.
The most effective way to promote Pangkor to the world is to develop a destination app for the island, which is accessible globally 24/7. Useful and interesting information in several languages in the Pangkor app would induce many to book and pay for reservations well in advance.
Pangkor may just be a speck in the 330,803 sq km land mass of Malaysia, but what is happening to it now reflects how Malaysia has developed as a nation. It is a shame whenever we chose expediency for short-term gains but depriving our future generations of long-term benefits.
Apart from our people, our jungles are our greatest resource, but we have no qualms in cutting them down in the name of development. Tragically, Malaysians suffer a double whammy as personal development is lacking in our education system. Sadly, the vicious circle continues.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the New Sarawak Tribune.
