KUALA LUMPUR, June 10 — Visit Malaysia Year 2014 was a failure because of issues with the Home Ministry and Malaysia Airlines (MAS), Culture and Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz said today.
Nazri took a swipe at the Home Ministry during Question Time in the Dewan Rakyat, saying the fear of involvement in prostitution activities was behind its reason for refusing to waive visa payment for China nationals entering the country.
“Yes, it is right. This is because of visa issues… you have to change your mindset a little from assuming that Chinese tourists who come into Malaysia will get involved in prostitution.
“This was the answer given to me by KDN when asked as to why we did not cancel the visa payment… this is a mere perception and it is not good,” the Padang Rengas MP said, using the Malay initials for the Home Ministry.
Nazri went on to explain that the targeted tourist arrivals was 28 million for last year, but fell short of 600,000, and this was mainly holidaymakers from China.
“Yes, definitely the MH370 incident left a big impact to the country’s tourism industry,” he said.
Nazri then criticised troubled flag carrier MAS for failing to streamline its efforts to promote Malaysia abroad with Putrajaya’s own.
He said this was not the case with other national carriers such as Thailand’s, which work closely with their own governments.
“This MAS is a problem for us because it is not working together with the government to promote tourism… what’s happening is that they are not flying now, but shutting down the airline,” Nazri said.
MAS is currently undergoing a turnaround the twin disasters of MH370 and MH17 last year.
MAS was this month replaced by a new legal entity, Malaysia Airlines Bhd (MAB), which rehired 14,000 of the 20,000 employees after all were terminated as part of a restructuring.
This was the airline’s last ditch attempt to turn the company around after chief executive Christoph Mueller revealed that MAS was “technically bankrupt.”
