SLAP......Tourism
Minister Ng Yen Yen's decision to allow foreigners to become tour guides in
Sabah is a slap in the face for state Tourism Minister Masidi Manjun.
By : QUEVILLE TO
TAWAU: The lack of foreign
language-speaking tour guides in Sabah has exposed the haphazard planning for
the multi-billion-ringgit industry at both state and federal levels.
The federal government’s
decision to permit foreign tour guides to work in the state to address the
problem of the limited number of multi-lingual local guides has created a new
problem for locals in the business who fear their livelihoods are at stake.
Tourism Minister Ng Yen Yen
has come under fire for the decision in a state that is already reeling from
unemployment problems. Its trained and untrained youth are forced to look for
jobs in either the peninsula or Singapore where salaries are higher.
The decision has met with
disbelief by many in the industry as well as lawmakers in the state who
questioned the seeming encroachment of a federal minister onto state turf.
A day after Sepanggar MP
Eric Majimbun criticised the decision as ill-thought, his Tawau counterpart
Chua Soon Bui said the Sabah Tourism, Culture and Environment Ministry has some
explaining to do regarding the matter.
She said she was astonished
that the state government was putting the livelihood and fate of local workers
in the hands of their federal counterpart.
Chua said this when
commenting on the Sabah Tour Guides Association’s (STGA) objection to the Federal
Tourism Ministry’s decision to allow Korean nationals to be employed as tour
guides in Sabah.
Ng said this week that the
South Korean government through its embassy in Kuala Lumpur had made a request
to have more Korean-speaking guides in Sabah and the government had agreed to
license Koreans to be trained as tour guides as a temporary measure until the
STGA could increase the number of its Korean-speaking guides.
She said the move was
necessary as there were simply not enough Korean-speaking tour guides in Sabah
to cater to the growing number of tourists to the state from that country.
More than 40,000 Koreans
came to visit Sabah this year between January and June, with only eight
Korean-speaking guides to cater to them. Last year, 36,422 Koreans visited
Sabah while for the first six months of this year there have been 43,873
arrivals.
‘Big slap to Masidi’
However, Chua said Ng’s
failure to consult her Sabah counterparts including the STGA on the matter
before making such an important decision again revealed the lack of
coordination and intrusion into state affairs by federal leaders.
She said the decision was “a
big slap to the state Barisan Nasional government and [minister] Masidi
[Manjun] in particular”.
The federal ministry’s
decision, she said, also reflected on Masidi’s performance and his inability to
address the perennial issue of shortage of multi-lingual local tour guides and
forced his federal counterpart to dictate the fate of the local tour guides.
Chua, who is also a
vice-president of the Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP), said Masidi had no excuse
for failing to address the problem since it was not new.
“I believe the problem could
have been long resolved if our state minister had given due attention to it. He
certainly owes the Sabah tourism fraternity a good explanation as to why he
failed to address the problem,” she said.
She reminded Masidi who once
headed the state’s main think-tank, the Institute for Development Studies Sabah
(IDS), that his ministry had commissioned IDS in 2010 to undertake a review of
the current 15-year Sabah Tourism Master Plan (STMP) and formulate the second
STMP for 2011-2025.
“What happened to the
studies and review? Doesn’t it also cover the problem of shortage of
Korean-speaking local tour guides?” asked Chua.
Mengenai masalah pemandu pelancong yang kurang ini Menteri Perlancongan perlu mencari langkah yang bijak untuk menyelesaikannya. Tambahan lagi kehadiran pelancong ke Negeri Sabah ini semakin meningkat dari masa ke semasa.
ReplyDeleteMengenai cadangan mengambil pemandu pelancong daripada Korea rasanya tidak salah. tapi perlulah memberikan keutamaan kepada pemandu pelancong tempatan dahulu.
ReplyDeletewalaupun bersifat sementara tapi janganlah kehadiran pemandu pelancong Korea ni menutup peluang yang besar untuk pemandu pelancong tempatan.
Deletekemahiran berbahasa asing tu yang perlu dipertingkatkan di kalangan pemandu pelancong selain fasih dalam bahasa perhubungan antarabangsa iaitu bahasa Inggeris.
ReplyDeletetapi dah menjadi kebiasaan orang korea dan pelancong asing lain tidak pandai berbahasa inggeris.
DeletePemandu harus mengkatkan keupayaan mengguna basaha negara lain.
ReplyDeletekemahiran pelbagai bahasa perlu ada bagi pemandu pelancong tempatan.
DeleteSemoga Menteri Pelancongan dapat mencari kaedah yang lebih berkesan yang tidak mengancam pemandu tempatan untuk selesaikan isu ini.
ReplyDeleteIndustri pelancongan adalah pendapat penting untuk neegri juga, harus menyelesaikan isu agar industri ini terus berkembang.
ReplyDeleteAdakah pengambilan pemandu luar negara akan menjejas pemandu tempatan?
ReplyDeletepastikan kepentingan pemandu tempatan trjaga.
DeleteHope the government can find a win-win method to resolve the tour guide shortage issue.
ReplyDeletemoga penyelesaian terbaik akan ditemui.
DeleteMasidi gave one year for the Sabah tourist guides to learn Korean. He said although an offer had been made in the past by the Government for locals to get free Korean language tuition (classes), the response was very negligible.
ReplyDeleteSabah Democratic Action Party (DAP) has commended Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Masidi Manjun for not implementing the Federal Tourism Ministry’s decision to allow Korean nationals to be given licenses to operate as tour guides in Sabah.
ReplyDeleteKudos to Masidi for ‘doing the right thing’
Hailing Masidi as the protector of the state’s tourism industry, Sabah DAP assistant secretary Junz Wong said he was extremely delighted that the new policy had not been enforced in order to allow for discussions and consultations with all the affected groups.
ReplyDelete“This is what Sabahans want, to protect the state’s tourism industry and its nature and wildlife for local Sabahans,” said Wong, who also praised Masidi for taking immediate action to investigate claims that Korean tour leaders had fed and abused wildlife in Sabah.
ReplyDeleteIt was learned that Masidi during a closed door meeting with Sabah Tourist Guides Association (STGA) and other stakeholders to discuss the issue on Tuesday had said that he would discuss with the Tourism Ministry and in the meantime the decision to engage Korean guides would not be implemented as yet.
ReplyDelete