KUCHING: Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Nancy Shukri said that efforts must be started without delay to ensure that Malaysia was able to become the first mover post-movement control order (MCO) and conditional movement control order (CMCO), in order to stimulate and revitalise the domestic tourism, arts, and culture industries.
“Global recognition of Malaysia’s success in controlling the Covid-19 outbreak signals that our country is safe and within the green zone,” she said.
She said that this success had enabled the reopening of the domestic tourism industry this month.
“This has allowed the people to breathe a sigh of relief, especially those in the tourism, arts, culture and heritage industries as they can revitalise all tourism, arts, and culture activities which were affected during the implementation of the MCO and CMCO,” she said.
She was speaking at a dinner event organised by the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture (Motac) with heads of departments and agencies under Motac, held at Grand Margherita Hotel here last Friday.
Nancy, who is also Batang Sadong MP, touched on what the Motac team had done earlier during the day; seeing for themselves the potential of Batang Sadong, including tourism, arts, and culture products which could be elevated.
“From this experience today, we can see the need for us to play a role in developing human capital and identifying new products and attractive packages.
“This will be a catalyst for the development of rural tourism, which will help boost the local economy especially in this post MCO and CMCO phase,” she said.
She said that they could also generate rural tourism with the concept of agro- and eco-tourism which had values of heritage and culture as well as gastro-tourism.
She noted that Motac also had agencies under it which could play the role of enhancing the knowledge and skills of the local community.
Then she expressed a hope that such tourism potential would be developed not only in Batang Sadong but also in all rural areas nationwide to find tourism products which were new and based on historical, eco-tourism, and agro-tourism values.
Also present were Motac secretary-general Datuk Dr Noor Zari Hamat, Motac deputy secretary-general (Culture) Saraya Arbi, and other representatives.
