LETTER | Govt aids offer rope for tourism industry to climb out of abyss

COMMENT | Perhaps no industries have suffered as badly from the Covid-19 pandemic as tourism. It has been over a year since our international borders were closed to tourists. 

Even domestic tourism has been badly hit due to the travel restrictions under the various forms of movement control order (MCO).

With each passing day, I and my fellow players in the industry watched in horror as our usual revenue streams run dry while costs like rental, salaries and other overheads pile up. I estimate roughly 30 percent of travel agents have folded or barely making ends meet.

The tourism industry is not like other sectors like food and beverage or retail where there are options like food delivery or online shopping.

Tourism is still very much an experiential industry. Our clients pay for experiences like visiting historical sites, savouring our local delicacies or getting spa treatments in resorts.

There are no alternatives to such experiences unless one is physically present taking part in these activities.

Unfortunately, this is not possible if foreign tourists are not even allowed into the country while domestic ones face a host of travel restrictions, not to mention the fear of Covid-19 transmission.

To be fair, the government takes cognisance of our hardship and has thrown us several lifelines over the past 12 months to help the industry stay afloat. Prior to the pandemic, tourism is the third-largest contributor to the Malaysian GDP after manufacturing and commodities.

For example, the Pemerkasa stimulus package announced by Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin last week has added a few more incentives to tourism players. 

These include an RM3,000 one-off aid to registered travel agencies, the extension on the waiver for tourism and service tax and levy and the widened scope of tax deduction to include package tours.

Prior to that, the government had introduced a "travel bubble" between Covid-19 green zones where visitors must use the services of tour agency vehicles. 

My businesses have started to pick up, although it's still a far cry from the good old days prior to the pandemic.

To be honest, the Pemerkasa stimulus package as well as its predecessors like Penjana and Prihatin were insufficient given how hard the pandemic has hit the industry. 

But without these, many more tourism-related companies would have gone under and thousands, if not tens of thousands more, would be rendered jobless.

Now that the national Covid-19 vaccination plan has gotten underway with talks of introducing a vaccination passport to allow a freer movement of travellers, we can now see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

And for some of us in the industry, the only reason we can see the light is the various lifelines thrown to us by the government, without which we would have been stuck in an abyss of darkness with no means of climbing out.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.