‘The Promotion Of ‘One District One Product’ Has Tremendous Potential To Attract Tourists’

Junaida Lee Abdullah, principal assistant secretary ministry of tourism, Malaysia talks about the successful implementation of home-stay programmes to promote tourism

Tourism was virtually unknown in Malaysia until the late-1960s. Since then it has developed into a major sector of the economy - the second largest foreign exchange earner after manufacturing. In addition to the more traditional goals of generating foreign exchange, increasing employment, fostering regional/rural development and diversifying the country's economic base, tourism is seen by the Malaysian Government as one of the keys to promoting a greater understanding of Malaysia's multi-ethnic population. It also gives Malaysia the opportunity to contribute to international peace given the fact that Malaysia is a modern and progressive Islamic country with varied cultures.

The performance of the tourism industry in terms of tourist arrivals to Malaysia since 1999 had been encouraging despite the world's economy slowing down, international conflicts and threats of safety issues to tourists. Tourist arrivals to Malaysia recorded a double-digit growth from 1999 with a growth of 42.9 per cent in 1999 followed by 28.9 per cent in 2000 and 25.0 per cent in 2001. This positive trend continued until 2002 with a total of 13,292,010 arrivals representing an increase of four per cent over that of 2001. However, it experienced a severe drop of 20.4 per cent bringing down tourist arrivals to only 10,576,915. This was largely due to the severe impact of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

Tourism Development

The Ministry of Tourism Malaysia (MOT) works closely with the Ministry of Rural and Regional Development. Also the Ministry of Agriculture and Agro-Based Industry, and Ministry of Entrepreneurship and Cooperative Development as well as with the various state governments through the participation of their respective State Tourism Action Council. Among some of the measures undertaken to eradicate poverty which provides opportunities for tourism activities are as follows:

• The promotion of 'One District One Product' which have tremendous potential to attract tourists arrivals.
• The promotion of heritage and cultural villages.
• The provision of basic tourism infrastructure and amenities to villages with tourism potential to promote day visits and implementation of the home-stay programmes.
• The promotion of local handicrafts to produce more souvenir items.
• The provision of training programmes to educate poor on the importance of customers care, cleanliness and hygiene, standards and quality of products and services, packaging of products, marketing, budgeting and accounting.
• Training of localised guides and
• Training of activists to run home-stay programmes in their own village.
• The successful implementation of the home-stay programme depends largely on the following factors:
• The attractiveness of the village itself in terms of its cultural heritage.
• Natural assets as well as the willingness of the villagers themselves to accept foreign guests.
• The accessibility of the village; whether the village is located within a tourist path and or situated in a nearby natural, cultural, historical/ heritage setting.
• The existence of local activities to lead the villagers to run this programme more effectively.
• The commitment of the home-stay operators to change mind-set that is to adopt a more business like approach to the management of foreign visitors into their villages, give attention to the importance of cleanliness and hygiene, pay heed to customer care and safety, endeavour to improve their English and other foreign language proficiency to facilitate communication, as well as work with local travel agents, hoteliers and MOT to promote their villages as home-stay products.
• The support of everyone in the village especially from those who are not participating in the home-stay programme to avoid and minimise community disputes, discord as well as envy.

All home-stay operators are required to register with MoT first. Upon receipt of such application, MoT will send its officials down to evaluate the viability of the villages in terms of its attractiveness, location as well as the existing infrastructure and amenities. The implementation of the home-stay programme is only meant to help supplement the villagers' income wile they continue with their daily economic activities. Operators are required to attend home-stay courses so that they are aware of the importance of customer care and safety, cleanliness and hygiene, conducting of interesting activities for their guests, managing their expenses, production of local handicraft and local produce such as cakes, traditional herbs, vegetables, flowers, fruits and others that could be sold to their guests. In addition, they would also visit other successful home-stay programmes in other villagers to learn and experience themselves as to how a home-stay programme should be run.

At the moment there are about 70 villages and 1,000 home-stay operators that have been registered with MoT. A home-stay directory has been produced to help promote these home-stay villages. Successful home-stay operators usually receive a lot of visitors from the promotion of youth tourism, students' tourism, education tourism as well as domestic tourism'. MoT and other government departments and agencies also which arranges for such villages to receive and act as host/foster villages for foreign guests and local students who are interested to experience a traditional rural lifestyle.