Monday, April 8, 2019

TripAdvisor to aid tourism

TripAdvisor to aid tourism



The Tourism Ministry will be working with all the industry players and international travel website TripAdvisor to improve the review ratings for the country.

Deputy Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Muhammad Bakhtiar Wan Chik said they would visit every state, starting with Penang after Hari Raya in June.

“In tourism, it is all about the reviews. We want to bring all the industry players and stakeholders together and share the knowledge on how to obtain a higher rating.

“If you are lowly rated, tourists will not visit.

“If people leave bad reviews about the food or the hotel being noisy, the ratings will be low.

“There are many unknown attractions and service providers that are highly-rated although we may not know about them,”  he said after handing over certificates to five Malaysia Tourism Quality Assurance 2019 (MyTQA) recipients at Entopia by Penang Butterfly Farm in Teluk Bahang on Saturday.

Muhammad Bakhtiar said Gurney Drive last year received low ratings probably due to land reclamation.

“It is rated by the people who went there and for obvious reasons, perhaps after the reclamation, sometimes people were disappointed as they wanted to see the sea.

“TripAdvisor is providing us with big data on why people visit Malaysia so we can figure out a strategy.

“There will be representatives from TripAdvisor joining us to advise the industry players.

Taiping was listed by Green Destinations (GD) as one of its 100 sustainable cities in the world last year.

“This shows that Malaysia has the potential.

“We, however, need to improve our service culture and Malaysian front-liners have to learn how to greet people and give it a personal touch.

“Other countries where English is not their first language have found a way to greet people in a welcoming way,” he said.

~News courtesy of The Star~

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