Being the first to close and last to open is devastating the tourism industry, with no clear plans in place for the reopening of borders the Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (MATTA) has claimed businesses involved in tourism are on the brink of collapse.
Before we see blood on the street, the association is urging the Finance Minister to be upfront in his efforts to help tourism businesses which are currently in extreme financial distress.
“The Malaysian tourism industry is on the brink of total collapse and the Ministry of Finance needs to be specific in its allocation to not only preserve tourism business and workers but to prepare and empower the industry for a major comeback,” said MATTA President Datuk Tan Kok Liang.
In 2019, Malaysia received 26 million foreign tourists with a revenue of RM 89.1 billion, exceeding the exports of palm oil at RM 70 billion and rubber gloves at RM 22 billion.
“As borders have remained closed for the last 18 months and with just a small travel bubble for Langkawi, we plead with the Tengku Zafrul to provide targeted assistance for tourism businesses and workers directly affected. This includes providing an extension of the wage subsidy and automatic bank loan moratorium and waiver of interest at least until the end of this year for borrowers directly impacted by the pandemic.”
Many businesses have taken business loans in 2020 in anticipation that the government will overcome the pandemic but tourism activities remain restricted and they are made to pay the bank instalments and interest with no revenue. The irony stated by Liang is while the greater economy suffers, financial institutions are recording billions in profits during the pandemic.
“The Ministry of Finance needs to provide practical financial assistance beyond tax incentives or tax rebates or deferment of tax instalments which we are unable to benefit from because tourism companies have already accumulated tax losses in 2020 and 2021. By now, we have more than enough tax losses to ofset any ‘so called forecasted profits’.”
MATTA welcomed the recent statement by the former Minister of Finance YB Lim Guan Eng reminding the government not to set the tourism industry aside. Lim had urged the government to provide further subsidies to workers in the tourism industry, waive the interest for bank loans during the moratorium, provide grants, and subsidies on rentals and utilities to businesses that had survived last year’s RM 100 billion in losses.
