Sabah tour guides: No outsiders

‘There are more than 600 locals fluent in Mandarin and dialects’

KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah Association of Tour and Travel Agents is adamant that tour operators cannot hire tour guides from China.

Its president Datuk Seri Winston Liaw said the issue must not be allowed to fester for the sake of local guides and stern action should be taken against illegal guides operating in the state.

He said there was no reason to engage guides from China as there were more than 600 local guides who were fluent in Mandarin and Chinese dialects.

Liaw was referring to a protest just after midnight on Friday by local tour guides who chased away tour guides from China at the Kota Kinabalu International Airport.

However, Tourism and Culture Ministry Sabah director Ahmad Zaki Abu Bakar said the guides were actually licensed.

He said a team was sent to investigate the protest by Sabah Tourist Guides Association (STGA) and the Sabah Native Registered Tourist Guide Association and found that they had gotten their facts wrong.

Ahmad Zaki said the company accused of illegally hiring the guides was operating legally and had a licensed guide and tour buses waiting at the airport to collect the tourists.

The incident caused dozens of Chinese tourists to be stranded after their guides fled out of fear for their safety. It is understood that the tour operator later managed to engage a local tour guide to help settle the Chinese tourists.

Meanwhile, the STGA was washing its hands over the incident.

Its president Grace Leong Nyuk Yin said prior to the protest, she received messages from local guides that there would be a chartered flight from China.

“I was told that the tour operators involved would be engaging unlicensed foreign guides and our local guides would go to the airport to protest,” she said in a statement yesterday.

Leong said she immediately relayed the information to the Tourism and Culture Ministry via WhatsApp, hoping that enforcement personnel would investigate.

“I went to the airport not as STGA president, but as a tourist guide to give support to the group of local guides. They are extremely worried about their rice bowl,” she said.

They are extremely worried about their rice bowl.

Grace Leong Nyuk Yin