Despite the Tourism Ministry having spent RM3.6mil for capacity building programmes of tour guides and foreign language course,there was a shortage of Malaysian tour guides who could speak Japanese, Korean, Iranian and Russian.
Tourism Minister Dato Seri Dr Ng Yen Yen said this at a dialogue session with industry players held at MATIC yesterday. She said this was a wake-up call for local tour guides to buck up and learn more foreign languages to cater the need of tourists from these countries.
“So far, 480 participants have joined these programmes, of which 245 existing tour guides joined the foreign language course and 235 graduates from institutions of higher learning participated in both courses,” she said.
“We have no choice but to bring in foreign tour guides because very few Malaysian tour guides can speak these languages, which is the main reason for the sharp reduction in tourists from these countries,” she told a press conference after a dialogue session.
She said these foreign tour guides would be closely monitored by the ministry and they would only be allowed in to the country when there was a need.
“It is not an open licence but we will allow them to come on an ad-hoc basis to ensure that we do not open a floodgate for them to work in Malaysia,” she said.
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