By Ling Hui
KUCHING, June 27: Malaysia is opening its doors to tourists and visitors from Singapore and Brunei with strict guidelines provided by the Ministry of Health (MOH) and World Health Organization (WHO).
Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture Datuk Seri Nancy Shukri said that the government is making the initiative to open Malaysian border for travels to and from other countries, Brunei and Singapore for now, provided that the other countries allow it too.
“They may have their own criteria and we also do have our own criteria, but of course the main criteria is to ensure that the country is safe for our people to visit.
“Recently guided by the WHO, we agreed that the fastest way to recover the economy through tourism is by opening the border,” Nancy told a press conference after chairing a closed-door dialogue with tourism players held at BCCK here today.
With key guidance from MOH and WHO, the federal government is confirming the list of green zone countries together with other countries for the implementation of ‘travel bubbles’, for instance Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Korea.
In the meantime, there are countries that are still in the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic where positive cases are surfacing.
Meanwhile, Nancy hoped that every state in Malaysia would focus on their niche tourism market.
“It is vital for us to discuss and to agree on what to share with Sarawak so that Sarawak will continue as a state that would focus on their ways of getting more revenue from tourism, and other states will be doing other things.
“We want to make sure that Malaysia as a whole, will have its own niche tourism products for each state that can help the state to grow in terms of economy,” explained Nancy.—DayakDaily
