LANGKAWI is gearing up to welcome its first group of domestic tourists from September 16 onwards as part of the government’s tourism bubble initiative, Langkawi Development Authority (Lada) chief executive officer Nasaruddin Abdul Mutalib said.

However, there is glaring problem – the island, off the state of Kedah in northern peninsular Malaysia, has yet to receive approval from the national security council to resume business which had stalled for 20 months.

Nonetheless, Lada is confident that the island will receive the necessary approval by September 10, less than a week ahead of the reopening date.

While most tourism operators on the island are happy about the news, many are still not aware of the standard operating procedure (SOP) that will have to be implemented.

Others are struggling to finance the reopening as buildings and vehicles that have been neglected for almost two years will have to be refurbished.

“We have sent the SOP to the NSC and the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture. We expect them to release the SOP before September 10,” Nasaruddin told The Malaysian Insight.

“On September 16, everyone from all over Malaysia can come to Langkawi regardless which phase of the national recovery their respective states are in.

“As long as they are fully vaccinated, they can visit. Non-vaccinated dependents from the same household will also be allowed to travel with their families.”

The island was initially supposed to open to tourists on September 1, but was delayed due to an increase of Covid-19 cases in the community.

To date, around 89% of Langkawi’s residents have been fully inoculated.

Of the 25,655 active Covid-19 cases in Kedah, 966 were found in Langkawi as of September 1.

Nasaruddin said one of the prerequisites of visiting the island is to obtain police permission to travel, due to the interstate travel ban that is still in place. Tourists are also required to show proof of their destination, such as hotel reservations.

However, tourists will not be subjected to any quarantine requirements.

Nasaruddin said the three points of entry into Langkawi – the airport, the Kuala Kedah jetty, and the Kuala Perlis jetty – will be closely monitored.

The Langkawi International Airport will also reduce its capacity from 25 flights a day to only 12 flights a day.

“We will process the arriving tourists, batch by batch, before the next flight arrives,” he added.

As for ferries, there will be 10 trips a day and each ferry will run at a 50% capacity, according to Nasaruddin.

He urged those travelling by ferry to arrive 45 minutes earlier to accommodate the time needed for vaccination status checks on ferry passengers. 

“For the Kuala Kedah jetty, which is smaller, there will be one trip every three hours and only four trips a day to Langkawi.

“From Kuala Perlis, there will be a ferry every two hours. We plan to have six trips from here,” he said.

Nasaruddin estimates that around 25,000 domestic tourists will visit the island from September 16 to September 30.

Other than Langkawi, which is a pioneer for the travel bubble, he said other island resorts can also implement the same measures and reopen.

“One of the main criteria (for reopening) is controlled accessibility to the destination. Like Pulau Pangkor and Pulau Perhentian where you can only go by ferry.

“On the mainland, there are too many access roads and it is hard to control,” he added.

Unclear SOP

Despite the reopening announcement by Lada, Pishol Ishak, the chairman of the Langkawi Tourism Bureau, said the island’s hotel operators are still in the dark about the SOP needed to ensure the safety of resort workers and tourists.  

“We want to know how they are going to do it. We want to know what the SOP are but until today, it is not ready.

“They (Lada) should have briefed us at the very least,” he said, adding that he only knew about the reopening date through news articles.

Pishol said resort operators will be unable to prepare for the reopening without the SOP.

“We can’t just open with short-term notice. Only when the SOP is ready and finalised can we talk about opening. The SOP must come first.

“Once that is done, the operators will follow through and prepare what needs to be done,” he said.

Pishol also believes that the reopening should be done in stages by allowing only Langkawi locals to visit in the initial phase, before opening up to visitors from outside the island.  

“They should open for locals first to adapt the new SOP and new norms. When the people are used to the SOP, then only we should be open to others,” he said.

Multiple challenges

Uzaidi Udanis, president of the Malaysian Inbound Tourism Association said while members of his association are happy with the prospects of reopening, they are faced with multiple challenges.

“We are happy, we have been preparing for this moment for the past two months.

“But there are several challenges, the biggest one being cash flow for the reopening as banks will not give us loans due to the risks,” he said.

Uzaidi said many of the hotels, jet skis, busses, etc have not been maintained for the past 20 months, because the island had not welcomed any visitors.

“At the same time, they are worried that if they hire all the staff and make arrangements, and it doesn’t go ahead, they will lose money,” he said.

He added that some operators will also need to renew their local council licenses, which have lapsed.

Uzaidi is also concerned about convincing locals of the island that allowing visitors is a good idea, seeing as the SOP is still not very clear.

“We need to come up with a method to protect the locals and convince them that welcoming them back to the island is a good move.

“These are micro challenges that we need to overcome,” Uzaidi added.  – September 2, 2021.