THE tourism industry is hoping for a swift increase in arrivals to give it the promised shot in the arm with the reopening of international borders beginning this month.

They hope that their chances of survival would be brighter now that foreign travellers are allowed to come into the country following a two-year lockdown.

However, there is also fear with hotel bookings not surging as promised. In fact, they said the response has been lukewarm at best.

“At the moment hotels have yet to see any significant pick up, one reason is it’s Ramadan, where hotel occupancy rates are normally low,” the Malaysian Association of Hotels (MAH) chief executive officer Yap Lip Seng told The Malaysian Insight.

He said reopening the border was necessary, adding that hotel owners only may see the smallest increase in the first month for any number of reasons, one of it being travellers’ uncertainty of requirements from both sides.

As other countries have reopened their borders, he predicted that arrivals would increase in the next quarter.

In order to achieve that, Yap said Malaysia must step up its marketing and promotions to lure more visitors.

“We need to intensify our tourism marketing and promotions to put Malaysia back on the world map.

“We are already losing out to neighbouring countries that had been aggressively pushing themselves, Malaysia needs to do more to attract leisure and business travellers,” he said.

As for hotels, Yap said that they only could try their best to attract tourists by assuring safety from Covid-19 infections.

He said hotels have been preparing their staff on hygiene and safety requirements.

Trouble with staff shortage, high cost

After more than two years battling with Covid-19 pandemic, Yap said that the shortage of manpower in the hotel industry was still a major problem.

He said it would take time to rebuild and recover, and claimed it may take one to two years to achieve this.

“The hotel industry needs the government’s wage subsidy scheme, while the plan to increase minimum wage will create additional problems for us.”

He said operating costs were already rising, adding that the hotel industry was caught in a tight situation because of this.

“The cost of operations is also increasing, particularly electricity. The increase in tariff will burden the industry as it reopens for business.

He also said that with Covid-19 now endemic, hotels are constantly changing recruiting to retain and re-attract people back into the industry, and this was not limited to better pay but also grooming employees for career development.

“This will ensure long term gain rather than immediate short-term solution only,” he added.

Budget hotels waiting for bookings

Meanwhile, Malaysian Budget and Business Hotel Association (MyBHA) president Emmy Suraya said that bookings were still low, particularly from foreign tourists, adding that most of their customers were from Brunei and Indonesia.

“Room bookings are still slow, probably because of Ramadan, and international travellers haven’t decided to go out yet.

“Hotels can’t just rely on local bookings, so we’re looking forward to the foreign tourists now that the borders are open,” she said.

Suraya also said that the industry faces a severe shortage of manpower.

She said that the locals were only willing to work in certain sectors.

“Locals are only willing to work in certain sectors, and the reality is that the hospitality industry needs multi-skilled workers.” – April 4, 2022.