Malaysians to answer to Big Brother
PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia wants to know where their citizens are going and what they are doing when they leave the country.
Until now Malaysia has not bothered to require its citizens to fill in departure cards when leaving the country, but all that could be about to change.
The Tourism Ministry hopes that if it knows what is persuading its citizens to holiday overseas, it may be able to convince them that they can have just as good a time at home.
Tourism minister Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor told The Star newspaper that according to Immigration Department records, 15 million Malaysians travelled overseas last year and the figure was just about two million less than the number of tourist arrivals, totalling 17.5 million.
“Since we currently do not require those leaving the country to fill up any forms, we do not know what Malaysians do overseas,” said the minister.
“The purpose of introducing an embarkation card is because we merely want to know their activities, whether they go abroad to travel, for business, study, visit relatives or other reasons.
“The number of Malaysians travelling abroad every year is high and we want to know why they like to go out of the country. If it is for travelling and tourism purposes, we hope to encourage them to participate in domestic tourism,” he said.
Tengku Adnan said Malaysia had a lot to offer and many Malaysians had yet to visit local places of interest, adding that while his ministry was aggressively promoting foreign tourists to visit the country, domestic tourism was equally important.
Several countries, including Australia, seek departure information from all travellers leaving the country.
Ian Jarrett
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