LETTER | Tourism development curtailed by poor grasp of industry terms

LETTER | Every industry has its own terminology with a glossary of terms for a specific application, precise communication and proper understanding. Industry terms are not interchangeable but those derived from familiar words are often switched freely by many in writing or speech.

In tourism, for example, tourist and visitor are industry terms. It is understandable if the public or media could not differentiate between the two and use them without giving much thought. But those in the tourism industry ought to know, yet over 99 percent are clueless.

When conducting a Training-Of-Trainers (TOT) in 2019, I had to keep reiterating the correct definitions for excursion and excursionist to wannabe trainers from the tourism industry, as some had great difficulty in expunging misconceptions they have held over the past decades.

When conducting a similar TOT in February this year, I gave participants several hours in advance to find the correct answer for the total number of foreign visitors to Malaysia in 2019. A token prize was offered to the first person to answer the question after the lunch break.

As per my expectation, the answer given was 26,100,784, which was wrong, as this figure was for the number of foreign tourists. The correct answer for the total number of foreign visitors was 35,045,625. This unpublished figure was arrived at by adding 8.944,841 foreign excursionists.

Those in the tourism business should know the difference between tourists and excursionists if they wish to tap into both markets fully. The former stays overnight while the latter would leave the same day. At any one destination, visitors are either tourists or excursionists.

But the same visitor can be a tourist in one city and an excursionist in another. A tourist staying in Kuala Lumpur on a day trip to Malacca is an excursionist in the historic city. Understanding the difference and quirks would allow industry personnel to exploit the full potential of tourism.

Recently, I was struck by the heading of a report claiming, “First eco-tourism farm launched”. This was because there is no such thing as an eco-tourism farm. Ecotourism is nature-based, while farms for plants or animals are manmade. There can only be one, the two cannot be combined.

The practice of ecological farming with results friendly to the ecology or environment is known as eco-farming. Although such efforts ought to be lauded, it would be incorrect to label them as eco-tourism, which are for activities that do not harm nature while enjoying it.

Initiatives by farms to receive visitors are known as agriculture tourism or agritourism for short. It was also referred to as agrotourism by the Tourism, Arts and Culture Ministry in 2017 as a tourism concept that offers visitors an assortment of activities relating to the agriculture sector.

Therefore, it would be wrong to claim that the newly launched hydroponic farm in Bentong, Pahang is the first agrotourism farm. It may be the first for the company, but certainly not the first to be opened to visitors or the pioneer in hydroponics, which was introduced almost a century ago.

Recently, the Visit Melaka 4.0 campaign was launched with the aim of attracting up to 5.6 million tourists. Malacca Chief Minister Sulaiman Md Ali said 33 tourist spots are involved compared with 24 locations in the previous campaign.

He disclosed that locations such as Air Panas Jasin, Malacca Crocodile and Recreational Park, Hang Tuah Museum and Malacca Zoo were added to this year’s campaign, which will be held until Dec 31 and offers discounts of up to 57 percent to all visitors.

The contents of the above two paragraphs were from Bernama. Had the state authorities been clear on the differences between visitors, tourists and excursionists, the report would have stated that the campaign is expected to attract up to 5.6 million visitors, as not all are tourists.

Most of these visitors would be excursionists from within Malacca or other states taking a day trip to visit the many attractions. Those that stayed overnight at hotels or private residences are deemed tourists, and the estimated number could only be ascertained through scientific surveys.

The authority that conducts annual surveys on domestic tourism is the Statistics Department. Pre-pandemic in 2019, Malacca received 13,979,000 domestic visitors, more than 13,303,000 for Negeri Sembilan and much higher than Kelantan with 10,986,000 and Perlis with only 2,088,000.

However, it was lower than Terengganu (14,158,000), Johor (14,274,000), Kedah (14,831,000), Penang (15,411,000), Pahang (18,498,000), Sarawak (19,793,000), Perak (21,070,000), Sabah (22,035,000), Kuala Lumpur (22,633,000) and Selangor (33,589,000).

Many would argue that Sabah and Sarawak could not possibly attract such a high number of domestic visitors, given their distance so far away from other states, not knowing that intrastate travel is also counted. And two-thirds of domestic visitors are excursionists, one-third are tourists.

As for foreign visitors, their entries and exits are recorded as tourists or excursionists at checkpoints manned by the Immigration Department. In addition, the immigration authorities in Sabah and Sarawak also process and record Malaysians from other states.

Many tourism businesses are still very much dependent on foreign visitors although domestic tourism alone offers huge potential. The two years of the Covid-19 pandemic should have forced them to create new products but industry leaders kept harping on digital marketing as the panacea.

Without changing perspective, industry players looking for opportunities would not be able to see although they could be in plain sight. Both public and private sectors have been shackled by antiquated regulations and business practices that must be discarded for tourism to flourish.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.