If you think that of Kuala Lumpur as a great city this is what a speaker from the USA Sheila Scarborough who attended the recent MITBCA conference has to say :
"My
knowledge of Southeast Asia is not that deep (Brian Spencer’s Bangkok
posts are helping to improve that) so this was my first visit to
Malaysia other than steaming through the Straits of Malacca on Navy
ships many years ago.
From
what little I was able to see outside of the convention center and
hotel during the conference, I honestly wondered why there isn’t more
buzz about Kuala Lumpur?
There
are interesting Indian, Malay and Chinese neighborhoods. The cuisine is
delicious and unique, reflecting the heritage mix of the country. The
people are friendly and welcoming.
The
city’s architecture is a mix of British colonial history as seen in the
photo; with the Petronas Towers gleaming in the background, the older
building (built in 1935) is now the MaTiC Malaysia Tourism Centre but
it served as military headquarters for both the British and the Japanese
during World War II.
There
are side trips galore across Malaysia, with discount airlines like Air
Asia and train systems that make it pretty easy to get around.
Sure,
I explored the Petronas Towers – they may not be the tallest buildings
in the world anymore, but they are quite impressive and a source of
tremendous national pride.
Somehow, though, I don’t hear as much traveler buzz about this city, and I’m not sure wh, she said..
The are two ways to look at this piece of news.
ReplyDelete1. Sheila Scarborough does not know about KL or Malaysia in particular until she got a free trip here, courtesy of the organiser of MITBCA conference. If she is lack of knowledge of Malaysia, maybe not everyone is like her.
2. After all these years, millions or billions of Ringgit had been spent on tourism promotion and still going nowhere, it is time for Tourism Malaysia, DBKL Tourism Division and KLTA to stock take with some drastic actions to remove all these dead woods and put in place a new team of people who "EAT, SLEEP AND SHIT WITH TOURISM INDUSTRY" to position Kuala Lumpur under the spotlight.
At present the people who promote KL are the direct tourism players like inbound travel agents, hoteliers, shopping malls, events organisers, travel writers and media are the frontline in the promotions of KL on their own initiative. The government are giving tourism promotional budgets to the wrong people and they are using it in ineffective spending and leakages.
The time has come for tourism industry players to stand up together and tell the government that "enough is enough". The tourism industry is going to face a tough challenging next one or two years ahead in this very competitive industry in this region whose target markets are facing deep financial crisis.