Letter to editor
ONE of the functions of the Immigration Department of Malaysia involves managing the movement of people at authorised entry and exit points of our country.
The department’s vision displayed on its website on Feb 6 is “A World Class Immigration Services Management Towards 2022”. And its slogan is “Integrity, Professional and Friendly”.
But going by the complaint of a recently published letter entitled “It is unacceptable to shout at foreign visitors” (New Straits Times, Feb 6), the vision looks like a pipe dream and the slogan yet to be translated into action.
The complainant, a Malaysian, together with a foreign partner arrived via an international flight at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) on Jan 23.
While the Malaysian was able to clear immigration swiftly using the autogate, the foreign partner had to join a large crowd in the hall for foreign passport clearance.
Later, when the queues became disorderly, an immigration officer got down from the counter and started berating those in queue for a few minutes before returning to his seat.
Long queues
He was reported to have shouted “Form a single line! I said single line! You know what a single line is?” and continued yelling at the arriving passengers to form a single line while processing the passports.
Sadly, long slow queues at KLIA are nothing new as they were already common long before the pandemic and are likely to grow worse with increasing international travel.
In 2021, only 134,728 foreign tourists entered Malaysia and the number shot up to an estimated 9.7 million last year. We could receive 18 million this year as long as we are perceived to be tourist-friendly.
In 2019, Malaysia received a total of 35,045,625 foreign visitors that comprised 26,100,784 tourists who stayed for at least one night and 8,944,841 excursionists who were day-trippers.
That year, an average of 4,000 foreigners entered our country every hour, while Malaysians made 13.3 million overseas trips in 2019. Clearly, the volume of work by the Immigration Department is enormous.
Fortunately, its director-general Datuk Khairul Dzaimee Daud announced recently that the new National Integrated Immigration System (NIISe) will be rolled out within two years, adding that it would also help slash the waiting period for foreign tourists at airports.
Open more counters
But meanwhile, arriving passengers should not be made to suffer. It is incomprehensible why are more immigration counters not opened whenever crowds grew large, as often happened in the past. This will continue if we remain indifferent.
Perhaps, Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd could help to alleviate the situation by deploying ushers to assist arriving passengers from the moment they step out of an aircraft and all the way to the immigration counters.
Apart from being forced to pass through a maze of shops inside the airport terminal building, some arriving passengers could be unsure whether they were waiting at the right carousel for their checked-in luggage to emerge from the conveyor belt.
While waiting to clear immigration, queues could become disorderly when those waiting long in slow lines are wondering whether they should join another queue. Here, ushers could assist and provide the information and also create a great first impression of our country by being friendly and courteous.
No doubt, every large organisation wants to provide good service by conducting in-house training for its personnel but with varying degrees of success.
In any case, training would be more effective if employees are also exposed to other tourism industry personnel. This could only be gleaned by participating in public programmes and interacting with other participants, and not limited to the trainer.
One of the most effective programmes must surely be Mesra Malaysia (MM), a one-day course that was rolled out in 2019 by the Tourism, Arts and Culture Ministry in conjunction with Visit Malaysia Year 2020 that was later aborted because of the pandemic.
MM remains relevant, particularly on interpersonal communication skills and participants get to learn about visual, vocal and verbal communication with courtesy as the bedrock of customer service.
If Malaysian citizens, permanent residents and foreign visitors are regarded as customers by the Immigration Department of Malaysia, then its personnel ought to change their attitude.
They should not lord over the public – just as they should not be subservient – as both are equally bad. Instead, they should learn to truly respect themselves. If so, they will automatically respect others. – Feb 7, 2023
CY Ming
Ampang
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Focus Malaysia.
Main pic credit: New Straits Times
