Important role of tour guides
MOST inbound tour operators are clueless about the number of foreign visitors who come to Malaysia and where they come from, although the information can easily be found on Tourism Malaysia’s website. The figures for 2019 are the most meaningful, as it was the year before the outbreak of Covid-19 in 2020.
Go to mytourismdata.tourism.gov. my/?page_id=420, and you will find “Top 45 Tourist Arrivals” from 2015 to 2022. Click December 2019 and the table will show that the total arrivals for the year was 26,100,784, involving 45 nationalities.
These visitors may not have come directly from their home countries, as they could be living elsewhere.
For example, Indian nationals who come to Malaysia could be working and living in Singapore. India has the largest expatriate population in the world, with more than 18 million people living outside the country.
Few people, including industry experts, are aware that we actually had more than 35 million foreign visitors in 2019. This is because foreign excursionists on a day trip to Malaysia are counted separately, and 8,944,841 entered our country that year.
Arrivals were at their peak during the last Visit Malaysia Year in 2014, when we had 27,437,315 foreign tourists, with slightly more than 50 per cent from Singapore.
If you ask why so many tourists are from Singapore, the usual reply would be that most of them popped over to Johor Baru for shopping, forgetting that foreign excursionists on day trips are counted separately.
I have yet to meet someone who can describe accurately what a tour guide or tour leader does.
To be a good tour guide, one must be friendly, knowledgeable and able to communicate well. Without a tour guide, it would just be an ordinary trip.
The basic job of a tour leader is to escort a tour group on an overseas tour, assist in check-ins at airports and hotels and ensure that all prearranged services are satisfactorily provided for at various destinations.
Contrary to popular belief, tour guides or tour leaders do not plan the itinerary or make arrangements. All these have been predetermined and agreed upon by outbound and inbound tour operators, and tour leaders and tour guides cannot deviate from the plan under normal circumstances.
More importantly, travel personnel must unlearn what is outdated and relearn what is relevant to succeed in the industry.
Unfortunately, many travel personnel do not ask questions, either to themselves or during training, preferring to listen passively as trainers give lengthy lectures, which is nothing more than a ‘syok sendiri’ exercise.
YS CHAN Kuala Lumpur