THE National Recovery Council (MPN) believes that the five-year target set by Tourism Malaysia for the country’s tourism sector to recover is too long.
Its chairman Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said this is because other issues and problems were likely to crop up during the period.
The former prime minister added that he had raised the matter during a recent MPN meeting after Tourism Malaysia presented a report on the recovery of the country’s tourism sector.
“The one thing I commented about the report at the meeting was on the five-year period it will take for the country’s tourism sector to recover. It is as long as the five-year 12th Malaysian Plan (12MP),” he said in his speech at the Tangga Batu Bersatu Hari Raya open house here last night.
Muhyiddin, who is also Perikatan Nasional (Perikatan) chairman, said following that, he had requested for the matter to be reviewed.
“Three or four years will suffice because it is in this (tourism) sector that many of our entrepreneurs, both Bumiputera and non-Bumiputera, had been hardest hit over the past two years,” he added.
Muhyiddin, after chairing the MPN meeting last Tuesday, was reported to have said that the council recommended that the Government come up with new initiatives and assistance to help increase the capacity of tourism industry players who have been severely affected for the past two years following COVID-19.
He said the reason being that the tourism sector was among the most affected by the pandemic which saw the number of tourist arrivals to Malaysia drop by almost 99.5% in 2021, compared with 2019. – May 21, 2022
