KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 15 — Several retailer groups and a tourism association today urged Tourism, Arts, and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing to reconsider a blanket ban that effectively stops tour operators from listing shopping as part of the itinerary.
The groups said that shopping in general should be allowed, so long as the activity is not limited to specific shops chosen by the tour operators.
“Bringing tourists to shop in a shopping precinct or shopping malls but not to specific shops should be allowed and in fact, encouraged instead,” they said in a joint statement.
The groups are the Malaysia Retailers Association; the Bumiputera Retailers Organisation; the Bukit Bintang-KLCC Tourism Association Kuala Lumpur; the Batu Road Retailers Association; the Malaysia Retail Chain Association; the Malaysia Shopping Malls Association; and a trade coalition of 123 businesses called Industries Unite.
Tiong had announced the blanket bank on February 11 attributing to numerous complaints from tourists to Malaysia.
He said that tour operators could schedule breaks in their itineraries so that tourists could go shopping wherever they wanted.
The groups said that they supported Tiong’s call for breaks in the tour itineraries but pointed out that shopping had been a major revenue source for Malaysia before the Covid-19 pandemic, contributing RM14.72 billion in 2019.
“It is pertinent to note that the shopping component of total tourist expenditures from the pre-pandemic years are as follows: 35.3 per cent in 2016, 36.3 per cent in 2017, and 37.6 per cent in 2018.
“The negative tourist experience in certain tourism stops can be addressed by better enforcement, the threat of withdrawal of tour agent licence and having a black list of collaborating shops.
“This should be an adequate deterrent to stop the malpractice,” they said.
This comes as Malaysia gears up to bring in increased numbers of tourists from China, following the republic’s decision to relax its Covid-19 related restrictions.
Last Friday, Bank Negara Malaysia assured Malaysians that their country would not be going into a recession this year, due to several factors including increased tourism activities.
Malaysia’s total inbound travel expenditure in 2022 was RM27.9 billion.
