Saturday May 22, 2010
Innovation way to tourism charisma
At Your Service by DATUK DR ONG HONG PENG
The success of the tourism industry in Malaysia hinges on innovation and creativity to develop new
products and services based on market demand for wealth creation
INNOVATION is key to transforming the tourism industry to maximise its potential to support the new economic
model.
Towards this end, an innovation-oriented tourism policy is being developed to generate and implement new
ideas and offer new products and services to the market.
This entails an adoption of a holistic approach, which is based on the entire tourism value chain to enhance
collaboration and synergy, among all stakeholders from the public and private sectors including nongovernmental organisations.
As case in point, recognising that the shoe industry has a huge potential for growth, a key initiative to establish
Malaysia as the shoe capital of the East.
The footwear industry in Malaysia comprises about 1,000 footwear manufacturers with a workforce of 30,000
and an output of RM1.1bil.
Towards this end, the development of the Malaysia International Shoe Festival as a tourism product
showcased creativity and innovation at work in terms of the concept, organisation, branding and marketing.
With the Vision of Innovative Tourism, a trade fair was, in effect, transformed into a festival with the theme
“Walking in Unity – 1Malaysia”. The Malaysia International Shoe Exhibition was organised in April 2010.
Other highlights included the Shoe History Gallery, Shoemaking Process Gallery, Young Designers’ Creative
Corner, Shoes on Parade, photo competition, creative shoe painting competition and “Search of Big Foot”
competition.
The biggest draw for the Festival was the million ringgit shoe gallery, which showcased the best 10 of Datuk
Jimmy Choo’s couture collection.
A dedicated seminar was organised where Choo shared his knowledge and global insight on the shoemaking
industry and what it takes to be successful shoe designers. The seminar inspired many young Malaysian
fashion designers.
As for organisation of this festival, it leveraged on the strategic public-private partnership with the Malaysian
Footwear Manufacturers Association and relevant government agencies.
The festival served as an effective platform to raise the profile of Malaysian brands such as Vincci, Bonia,
Sembonia, Carlo Rino, Jukebox, Asadi, Dr. Cardin, Nose, Lewre, Crocodile, John Bird and Larrie.
Another key focus area of innovation is to raise the tourism value chain by creating and offering new
experiences. The innovative packaging of rail tourism and homestay provides for an exciting holiday
combination and enables market needs to be met with increased value.
The development of rail tourism is an initiative undertaken by the Tourism Ministry with the cooperation of KTM
Bhd, tour operators and homestay participants to create niche tourism that leverages on the homestay
programme and extensive rail network in Malaysia.
With Singapore as the main target market, the first phase covered the Singapore-Kelantan route.
The strong demand for rail tourism has initiated an expansion to include selected homestays in the west coast
from Singapore to Perlis. This creative package includes an authentic experience in the train before arriving at
the homestay destination.
The homestay concept has been rebranded with emphasis on lifestyle and experiential tourism. To further
promote environmental conservation and awareness, the Plant a Tree (PAT) Programme was implemented.
This programme involves the setting up of plant nurseries as an additional source of income.
Plants from these nurseries are for sale to tourists to take part in the tree-planting programme as part of their
contribution towards conserving the environment.
This initiative will encourage repeat visits as tourists would be keen to monitor the growth of the tree that they
planted. As part of efforts to increase value-added tourism, the Homestay Entrepreneurship Programme was
introduced.
It encourages homestay operators to be involved in small-scale cottage industries.
In our quest to introduce an innovative marketing approach, the Homestay e-Marketing Promotion Campaign
was launched in April 2010.
It is a novel way to promote Malaysia’s homestays through mobile phone so as to reach extensive market
coverage.
This utilisation of the new media allows tourists to deal directly with homestay operators, thus providing better
returns.
As at Dec 31, there were 141 registered homestays comprising 3,283 houses with 4,414 rooms.
Total homestay receipts for 2009 increased by 71%, from RM6.4mil in 2008 to RM10.9mil in 2009.
The total number of tourists visiting homestays has increased by 77% from 91,533 in 2008 to 161,523 in 2009.
The occupancy rate has also increased from 16.1% in 2008 to 20.4% in 2009.
Creativity in formulating tour packages to generate new demand can also be carried out through international
collaboration.
For instance, the Unesco 123 package involves 1 Unesco package, 2 countries namely Malaysia and
Indonesia and 3 destinations involving Penang and Malacca and Borobudur Unesco World Heritage sites.
The success of the tourism industry in Malaysia hinges on innovation and creativity to develop new products
and services based on market demand for wealth creation.