The temporary closure of the oldest hotel in South East Asia, Penang’s famous Eastern & Oriental, is a wake-up call from an industry on “life support”. Penang and Malaysians are sad at the fate of the famous E&O, which have been operating since 1885. Many hotels throughout the country have either closed for good or temporarily, with many still operating becoming hawkers and selling hotel food on the streets.
After severe criticism, the Tourism Ministry have finally woken up from the complacency and incompetency of their Minister and Deputy Ministers. They have conceded that their Budget 2021 projection of the hotel room occupancy rate for 2020 at 61.1% and 58.4% for 2021 is wrong. Instead, the hotel room occupancy rate has been revised to 27.8% in 2021 and 25.4% in 2020.
Now that the Tourism Ministry knows how serious the situation is, the critical question is what they are doing to help the industry, that lost RM100 billion in revenue last year to survive. Any inaction and inertia on their part will result in the tourism sector bleeding losses and not help the tourism industry recover to take advantage of any economic rebound projected for this year.
The government must step in and take responsibility to save not just the tourism sector but also the economy as a result of the movement control order(MCO)2.0 extended till 18 February 2021, following the government’s abject failure to manage the surge in COVID-19 infections. Is the government aware of the economic distress of the unemployed, the poor and those running small businesses closing down and workers losing jobs?
Ministers should leave their air-conditioned offices and go down to the ground and witness the economic suffering of workers, tourism industry, clothes retailers, shopping complexes whose tenants are paying high rental without any customers and small businesses. Where is the promised automatic extension of bank loan moratorium, rental relief or subsidies, and increase in monthly welfare payments to RM 1,000 including to the growing number of unemployed?
The flip-flops and U-turns by the government in disallowing and then allowing businesses to operate has damaged business confidence. There is no reason for prohibiting hairdressers and clothes retailers in pasar malams from operating compared to other businesses. If Federal Territory Minister Tan Sri Annuar Musa can break Covid-19 protocols walking side by side with two colleagues without a mask, the government practices double-standards by barring ordinary Malaysians from earning an honest living.
A new substantial economic stimulus package is essential to rescue businesses relying on Chinese New Year celebrations to survive and unable to do so due to MCO 2.0. Otherwise, we may save lives but loss of economic livelihood may result in more lives lost or as a trader said, ‘the economic recession will kill us first before COVID-19”.