Malaysian Pest Analysis: Government Report

The objectives in this section will reveal on what does the purposes of this research project served. Firstly, this project will briefly discuss about PESTE (Political, Economic, Sociocultural, Technology, and Ecological) analysis on Malaysia. The discussion will go on into the literature part whereby it will firstly discuss various type of definitions of tourism. Then it will discuss about the tourism planning five approaches which will be Boosterism, Economic, Physical/Spatial, Community and Sustainable that has been utilized by Malaysia government.

1.2.1 Politic

Malaya, which is now known as the peninsular Malaysia, became independent on August 31, 1957. In year 1963, Malaya merged with Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak to formed Malaysia. But after two years, Singapore has become an independent country on 9 August 1965. Now, Malaysia consists of 13 states whereby 11 of its are on Malay Peninsula and the other two, Sabah and Sarawak are on the island of Borneo. It has three federal territories which is Kuala Lumpur, Labuan island, and Putrajaya federal administrative territory. Each state has an assembly and government which are headed by a chief minister. Among 13 of these states, 9 of the states have hereditary rulers which are usually titled as “sultans” while the rest of the four states have appointed governors in counterpart positions.

Although Malaysia is known for its strict rules but tourist who are visiting Malaysia not more than one month does not require visa from the Malaysian Immigration Department. It is also important that foreigners follow the conditions and laws of Malaysia.

1.2.2 Economy

After 1957 where Malaysia became independent, the economy of the country was mainly based on rubber and tin. Since then, economy was growing and become a more industrialized market. In the 1997-1998 East Asian crises, Malaysia was one of the countries that involved in the Asian crisis but did not involve the International Monetary Fund (Sundaram, 2006). But it recovered from the recession very fast and since then, the economic was very stable with a GDP rate of RM679,687 million in year 2009 (Department of Statistics Malaysia, 2010). The government has spend an amount of RM 40.1 billion in subsidizing petrol, natural gas, food and road tolls in year 2007. Malaysia also does have a lower percentage in unemployment rate which is 3.3% recorded in July 2010 and 3.1% in August 2010 (Department of Statistics Malaysia, 2010).

1.2.3 Socio-cultural

According to the Official Website of Department of Statistics Malaysia which was updated on 02 July 2010, it is stated that Malaysia currently has 28.25 millions people. It is well known that Malaysia is a multicultural country which consists of a mixture different ethnic which are Chinese, Indian, Malay, and also indigenous and others. Malays makes up almost half of the Malaysia and then follows by Chinese and Indian. Most of the Malays are Islam while others may belong to Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism or other/none. Malaysia was recorded an annual rate of growth of 2.0%.

The official language used in Malaysia was Bahasa Melayu, then followed by other language such as Chinese which comes with various dialects, English, Tamil and others. This makes Malaysia a perfect country for tourist to visit because there will be no language barriers for them as long as they can speak either one of them.

1.2.4 Technology

Malaysia has a very good national and international telephone lines. It is because Peninsular Malaysia are using microwave radio relay and it provide a good connectivity between cities. It also have two international earth stations and also two Intelsat which are located at Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean. Thus, tourists who are travelling to Malaysia will have no connectivity problem. By now, Malaysia has a total of nine Internet Service Provider (ISP).

Some of them are P1 WIMAX, Maxis Broadband, Streamyx, Jaring, Celcom Broadband and so on. On the other hand, Malaysia also have a good range of radio and television stations. It has 19 radio stations that are owned by private sector while 34 stations are owned by government. Furthermore, Malaysia has 58 airports. 36 of them are on East Malaysia while the rest, 22 are on Peninsular Malaysia. Hence, these technologies that available in this country will definitely make life easier for tourists.

1.2.5 Ecological

Malaysia is full of biodiverse range of flora and fauna which can be found around the country. It is because the tropical rainforests comprises to almost 70% of Malaysia total land area. Malaysia has been recorded that it has the world’s fifth largest of mangrove forest whereby the world largest mangrove forest area is in Sundarban, Bangladesh. Ever since Malaysia has been filled with a lot of natural resources and environment, the government has also take part in preserving the environment to prevent further damage being caused to it.

The government has put a lot of effort in preserving this environment by firstly introducing the Air Pollutant Index (API). The API is an indicator of air quality and was developed based on scientific assessment to indicate in an easily understood manner (Department of Environment, 2007). Besides, the Department of Environment (DOE) also conducted the National Ambient Noise Monitoring Programme to determine the Malaysian ambience status in year 2006 (Department of Environment, 2007). For the river water quality control, the DOE has started to monitoring the river since 1978 (Department of Environment, 2007).

2. Literature Review

2.1.1 Definitions of tourism

There is no single definition of tourism to which everyone adheres. Many definitions have been used over the years, some of which are universal and can be applied to any situation, while others fulfill a specific purpose (Weaver and Lawton, 2010).

But a more recent definition from WTO (1991 cited in Mason, 2003, p. 5) defined tourism as the activities of a person traveling outside his or her usual environment for less than a specified period of time whose main purpose of travel is other than for exercise of an activity remunerated from the place visited.

However, none of these two definitions makes any connection to the impacts of tourism whereby impacts are the key to any discussion of the planning and management of tourism (Mason 2003, p. 5). But Jafari (1981, p. 3 cited in Mason, 2003, p.5) stated that tourism is a study of man (sic) away from his usual habitat, of the industry which responds to his needs and the impacts that both he and the industry have for the socio-cultural, economic and physical environments.

2.2 Tourism Planning Approaches

2.2.1 Boosterism

Boosterism has long existed ever since tourism started. Boosterism can also be defined as the act of boosting a travel destination or a city which are done usually by the people in the area affected. Hall (2000) comment that boosterism has long been the dominant tradition towards tourism since mass tourism began. Hence, sorts of effective method are being exploited in order to boost a place. A place which is full of resources such as cultural and natural can be taken as an example. Malaysia is a good set of example for cultural and nature tourism with its existing rich resources.

Although boosterism has been active for a long period but it was only discovered by people when big event such as Commonwealth games and Formula 1â„¢ racing event are being held in different countries (Hall, 2000). The changes in tourist arrival and room supply by hotel can be noticed easily when these huge event are being held.

It can be seen that Malaysia has been trying hard to promote the country by using different type of promotion to attract different type of tourist. For example, there is one event called Malaysia Year End Sale (YES) that is ongoing from 20 November 2010 to 2 January 2011 (Tourism Malaysia, 2010). The event purpose is to attract shopping tourist to Malaysia because at that time, all shop around Malaysia will be having alot of discount which can never be seen during other period.

Another side of boosterism by Malaysia is advertising. The Minister of Tourism Malaysia has launched an advertising campaign called ZOOM! Malaysia for SMRT trains, busses, and taxis in Singapore (Tourism Malaysia, 2008). This advertising campaign specifically targets the public transport because it was popular among the locals and foreign tourists (Tourism Malaysia, 2008).

From another side we can also see that Malaysia has successfully in promoting Malaysia in September 2006 whereby Tourism Malaysia has signed a £2 million deal with Manchester United to promote Visit Malaysia Year 2007. This has also directly make Tourism Malaysia as one of the official sponsors of Manchester United Football Club (MANUTD, 2010).

2.2.2 Economic

When tourism emerged as a part of economic sector in the decades following World War II, most researchers and government administrators assumed its growth to be a positive and desirable process (Lawton, 2010). Ever since then, many countries have used this as an opportunity to promote their country to other world as a tourist attraction. Countries with natural resources such as cultural and heritage area, historical place that are left behind after the impact of war will be a great benefit to the particular country in promoting tourism. Actually what can tourism contributes to a country’s economic status? The contribution can usually be measured at either a national level or at the local or regional scale. The impacts of tourism to economy are as follow:

foreign exchange earnings;

government revenues;

generation of employment;

regional development.

One of the main characteristics of the economic approach is the use of marketing and promotion to attract the type of visitor who will provide the greatest economic benefit to the destination given the destination’s specific tourist resources (Hall, 2000). For example, the Malaysia Year End Sale promotion that will be launching soon. Although the promotion will be all around Malaysia but it will be more focus on Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia because tourist will normally more focus in capital city. With the plenty of resources available in capital city such as high-end shopping malls, the promotion can be executed flawlessly with its aim achieved.

2.2.3 Physical/Spatial

In the last decade of the twentieth century, it was noted that tourism depends ultimately upon the environment, as it is a major tourism attraction itself, or is the context in which tourism activity takes place (Holden, 2000). However, Lawton and Weaver (2010) argued that problems can occur if a destination becomes too dependent on tourism, or if the sector is controlled (or is perceived to be controlled) by outside interests. It is indeed a fact that tourism can cause both invisible and visible impacts to the environment. Therefore in order to minimise the impact that tourism can caused to the environment, Hall (2000) suggests that visitor managers should seek to manipulate travel patterns by concentrating or dispersing tourists in sensitive areas. For example, many national park limits a certain number of visitors per day to ensure minimal impact that can be caused to the area.

Malaysia is indeed a most fortunate country that are blessed with a wide range of natural and cultural assets. Since it is blessed with so many assets, people who lived in the country each has their own responsibilities to take care of the environment. Therefore, the Malaysia government has come up with a campaign called “1MALAYSIA GREEN TOURISM, 1MALAYSIA CLEAN”. The reason for launching this event was to built up the passion of people in keeping clean the environment, especially tourist attraction destinations. This campaign was also based on the tagline “Think Tourism. Act Tourism” by Minister of Tourism, YB Dato’ Sri Dr, Ng Yen Yen (1Malaysia Green & Clean).

2.2.4 Community

2.2.5 Sustainable

2.3 The Butler’s theory

Time

Number of tourists

Exploration

Involvement

Development

Consolidation

Stagnation

(Rejuvenation)

(Continued stagnation)

(Decline)

Critical carrying capacity threshold

Source: Adapted from Butler 1980.

2.3.1 Exploration

An explanation from oxford dictionary described exploration as the action of searching an area for natural resources. This can also be explained as a tourist tried to explore a destination (tourist destination) for leisure or relaxation. According to Butler, the exploration stage is characterised by very small numbers of visitors who are dispersed throughout the destnation and remain for an extended period of time ( Lawton and Weaver, 2010).

In brief, exploration can also be described as the ‘pre-tourism’ or the starting of a tourist attraction destination where not many people are there yet and most of the people does not know about it. Visitors that went to the place will experienced the most rural kind of services whereby improvement have not been done yet. Most of the exploration usually started from urban area. Malaysia first exploration started in the 13th century when Malacca was founded by a Sumatran prince. The place later became the most influential port city in the Southeast Asia during that time. That is the place where traders from all part of the world gathered and that was the time Malaysia was exposed to other countries’ visitors. But after Malaysia being exposed, a lot of countries tried to conquer Malaysia due to its rich resources. After 138 years, Malaysia finally gained its independence in 1957and since then Malaysia has undergone a tremendous growth and prosperity since 1957.

2.3.2 Involvement

The involvement in here means that the involvement parties which may include visitors, government, or entrepreneurs. Local entrepreneurs will begin to provide a limited amount of specialised services and facilities in response to the appearance of tourists, thereby inaugurating an incipient tourism industry (Lawton and Weaver, 2010). Specialised services such as small eating places, inn, and maybe small transportation services might also be available. With these services, visitors might also be increasing but in a slow phase because things are still undeveloped.

The role of advertising will also started in this phase as it will induces a definable pattern of seasonal variation. The place will started to get mentioned in articles and brochures but the affected part are still considered a small area. Word-of-mouth start to spread in a slow manner.

2.3.3 Development

2.3.4 Consolidation

2.3.5 Stagnation

2.3.6 Rejuvenation or Decline

Rejuvenation

Decline

3. Methodology

The method that was used in completing this assignment includes web browsing. Several web search engine are being used frequently are Google, Yahoo and Wikipedia. These web search engine are only being used as a bridge to the information that we needed. Besides, government website are also being used frequently to acquire important facts and figures about the country. Website such as Malaysia Tourism Board, Department of Statistics Malaysia, and Malaysia Government Portal are where some of the facts and figures being collected.

Other than websites, the information was also collected from books that are available daily in our institute. Several books have been lent in order to complete this assignment. Books such as Tourism Management, Tourism Planning: Policies, Processes and Relationships, and Tourism Impacts: Planning and Management are noticeable throughout the assignment as citations are mostly quoted from these books. E-journal has also contributed quite some figure in this assignment whereby most of them are acquire through the institute research databases which are the MDIS EBSCOhost research databases.

4. Analysis and Discussions