Disruption affects tourism sector too
I REFER to the letter “Tourist guides hoping for fair share of the business” ( The Star, May 3).
The writer defined tourist guides as “trained professionals who take visitors around the country to see the local sights, cultures and traditions, and provide them with interesting experiences and information that would make them want to come back over and over again.”
This is certainly true if they are knowledgeable and compatible with the tourists.
No doubt tourist guides are the only licensed participants in the travel industry but they are far from professionals after just attending a four-to-six-months’ part-time course and coached mainly by one trainer.
Training for tourist guides would be more effective if speakers from the Tourism and Culture Ministry (Motac), Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD), Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (MATTA), Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad, Road Transport Department, Police, Customs Department, Immigration Department and local authorities were invited to engage with the trainees and contacts were established to resolve problems that may arise.
If such communication channels are established, there is no need to call on the authorities concerned to sit down and discuss strategies to improve the industry for all stakeholders, such as solving the problem of dirty toilets, training tourist bus drivers to be courteous and making outlets clean and tourist-friendly.
Another point, “Guides explain our cultures and traditions to the tourists, giving them an insight into our local communities. By doing so, they take away the fear of the unknown and help our visitors to really appreciate the beauty of our country”, deserves scrutiny.
This may have been true a long time ago when information was scarce and difficult to obtain but today, mass tourism has allowed huge numbers of people to travel and “fear of the unknown” does not arise anymore.
People are also well connected by social media and use their smartphones to, among others, book and pay for goods and services and search for information on the spot.
They do not need a tourist guide to give the verbal information as a destination app could provide all the interesting and useful information they need in an organised manner.
As such, for most visitors, the service of a tourist guide is unnecessary, more so when it costs several hundred ringgit a day, which is not cheap for those on a tight budget.
Tourist guides who accuse tour operators of saving cost by not using their service are deluded. Their service is one of the many components that could be offered to customers, and cutting down the number would mean lower sales.
As such, tour operators are calling on the Tourism and Culture Ministry to make tourist guides optional for Malaysians to boost domestic tourism. When customers are prepared to pay for a tourist guide, the onus would be on the tour operator to engage the best available and not just anyone who is licensed to provide the service.
Tourist guides should not feel victimised. Many businesses have been disrupted and jobs made redundant by technology. Ever since the first local tourist guide course was conducted in 1964, tens of thousands have attended such training.
The number of tourist guides is reaching 15,000 in Motac’s registry but most are inactive, taking just enough assignments a year to enable them to renew their licence.
Just like tourist guides in the past, most of them have moved into office-based jobs and are managing tour companies or tourism-related enterprises while others have switched to other industries they find more lucrative.
Tourist guides should not get carried away when they are described as ambassadors of the nation. In 2012, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak hailed taxi drivers as the nation’s image ambassadors when launching the Tourism Taxi Ambassador Programme, and 4,000 were eventually appointed tourism ambassadors. But in 2015, a UK website, LondonCabs.co.uk, placed Kuala Lumpur taxi drivers at the top of a list of 10 worst taxi drivers across the globe.
However, the writer was spot on in reminding everyone that the tourism cake is big and called on all industry players to attract more tourists.
There is a need to review the antiquated law that requires tourist guides to be assigned to all sightseeing tours in the country.
It should be remembered that the majority of tourists are travelling as independent travellers and book direct with airlines, hotels and e-hailing apps for their seats, rooms and transfers.
Tourist guides must wake up to the reality that it is now a new world order and those who continue to dwell in the past are certain to be left behind.