Agency boss skips country with money, girlfriend
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s former deputy tourism minister Datuk Dr Ng Yen Yen (currently deputy finance minister) has called on the Malaysian tour and travel industry to follow Hong Kong in setting up a fund to compensate customers of travel firms that go bust.
This was prompted by last week’s incident when the sudden closure of Kuala Lumpur-based Excellence Holidays cost travellers thousands of ringgit, money paid in advance for tours to Europe, China and Hong Kong.
It is believed that one of the company’s two directors, (Ronald) Chan Kean Mun, fled Malaysia to China with his girlfriend and with about RM500,000 of his clients’ money. The missing cash involves travel packages bought at the MATTA travel fair in March, and also money owing to various parties.
The other director, Chong Suk Yen, who is Chan’s ex-wife, has since contacted police.
Malaysia deputy tourism minister Datuk Donald Lim has also suggested the establishment of a mechanism to enable travellers to be compensated if they lose money when travel agents go bust.
Lim said his ministry would work with the Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (MATTA) to come up a mechanism that would not only prevent consumers from losing their money to bankrupt agencies but also to penalise errant agents. He planned to study the models of such mechanisms that are in place in some countries.
“Britain, Australia, Taiwan and Hong Kong already have such mechanisms so we must study theirs to come up with the best model that is both workable and practical here,” said Lim.
A scheme in which travel companies are required to post a bond of RM100,000 has proved unworkable because of central bank regulations.
In the meantime, MATTA has issued a statement calling people affected by Excellence’s closure to provide it with the relevant data to assist the Tourism Ministry in its investigations.
MATTA said the association was working very hard to prevent such an incident from happening again.
Note: Excellence Holidays recorded over RM74 million in turnover in 2005 and was one of the top five travel agencies in the country. It was incorporated in 1985 and had a paid up capital of RM1.3 million. The company went bust on May 4.
– by Corinne Wan
Ian Jarrett
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