Malaysia year

Assurance on hassle-free holidays

PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia has promised tourists a memorable and hassle-free visit, with an assurance that glitches will be resolved in the shortest time possible.

Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor said a committee would be making weekly evaluations of the Visit Malaysia 2007 (VM 2007) programme, and problems would be dealt with almost immediately.

A local daily reported yesterday that tourists were hopping mad over the long delays and on-board commentaries of Kuala Lumpur’s much anticipated hop-on-hop-off bus service that started on New Year’s Day.


Rousing welcome: Tourists getting a lion dance welcome as they get off the train at the Butterworth railway station yesterday. Efforts are being made to ensure tourists have a comfortable and enjoyable stay in Malaysia.
Several tourists complained of the poor language of the bus drivers and guides. The service is modelled after successful systems from other countries.

Tengku Adnan said these complaints would be looked into today and he would call the company conducting the hop-on-hop-off service “to see what the problem is”.

He said: “One cannot discount teething problems and initial hiccups”.

Tengku Adnan said about 50,000 tourists arrived in Malaysia on Jan 1 and that 80% of them were Asians.

The figure would be higher if not for the Johor floods and the Bangkok bombings, he said.

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Yes yes finding out the problem, our dear Tourism Minister. We can see that you are launching on with the VM2007 plan, and you are trying out your best. However you did made me a little jealous?

The public transport in KL is bad, is always not in time, and the public buses are not in good clean maintain condition. And unadmitedly due to overpopulated vehicles on narrow roads and conjusted areas, lack of parking area which is something so common in a busy city, really, a lack of convenient transportation out of the road. We still have our KTM and LRT. Maybe while you are thinking about the hop-on-hop-off service, you could suggest them using the off road transport.

Well, really the purpose of traveling is to see how people in other parts of the world, with different living style and cultures going on with their normal ordinary life. To see the city, to enjoy the local food, to enjoy the traffic jam we KLites 'enjoy' here, and how the whole city function. It is not like we should trying to pretend what we are not, like the 'convenient transportation and hassle free on road'. No, That assurance would not work out unless cars could fly on the blue skies, and where shrinking machines are invented so we could shrink our cars into palm size and put it into our pocket and walk around, without the trouble of finding car parks and double/tripple parking on the road that get the road stuck. No, unless we have some other main transport off road to divide off the burden of our poor road system.

You see? When you go to a country, you become part of the citizen as long as you are there, you eat their food, you share the same transport, your feet landing on that piece of land. If they would chose to come to Malaysia, especially KL, that's what we all KLites are experiencing. Why should the tourists get special offers and obtain better transportation specially arranged for their convenience? We Malaysian also has give up of these reliability on public transport and that get into ourselves stuck together each driving a car on the road. Let's just get stuck together, rather than rely on the bus that would come late and are not widely cover up enough areas for us to hop-on-hop-off. If we really want to improve this hassle, it is a long term planning and should start off with our own citizens instead. Poor language? You can see part of it here. Yes. We try to communicate, although our English could be quite bad, at least we are not like the French who refuse to utter an English word even in the airport counter or train station to help, while speaking French with hand slightly move a little that doesn't give me any clue of any direction whether I should start off with left side of right side of the airport entrance. You know, is kinda mean to do that when you know we can't understand. But we Malaysian try! At least we try to help you even if we can't speak proper English! Believe me, if you happen to be in a foreign place with foreign language and you are stuck and have no one heck of idea what they are talking about, but you can see the enthusistic they are offering, with all the gestures and pointing all over, You'll feel so happy and warm in your heart, although you have no idea what he is talking. It is the heart to help, don't blame over the language. That makes your trip less happier over these 'not home familiar feeling'. So why bother with these little things? People are not all perfect, and yeah we really wish one day that everyone can understand each language and there won't be any misunderstanding in speech occuring.

Keep on the hard work dear Tourism Minister. We? We will give them our best Malaysian food, we will introduce to them our culture and how we with different races and culture could live harmony together. We try to help whenever we can with the directions when these tourists asking for directions. Malaysian are still quite known for their friendliness when it comes to need to help.