Johor State Tourism, Youth and Johor State Tourism, Youth and Sports committee announced incentives to provide aid for the state’s tourism industry that has been severely affected by the Movement Control Order (MCO) introduced to curb the fast spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a press statement on 21st May, Johor Tourism, Youth and Sports committee chairman Datuk Onn Hafiz Ghazi addressed the struggles faced by the tourism industry players.
Hotels are facing large numbers of booking cancellations from domestic and foreign travellers and so are homestay operators, travel agencies, tourist guides, tourism product owners as well as supporting industry players.
Datuk Onn Hafiz Ghazi announced tourism incentives in 3 different segments under the Johor Ihsan Economic Stimulus Package. A one-off cash aid of RM1,000 as will be granted to the 936 licensed tour guides operating in the state totalling to an estimated RM936,000. Tourism businesses and hotels will be exempted from business license fees for the year 2020 (about RM894,211) benefiting 1,031 businesses around Johor. The final aid is for theme parks and family entertainment centres’ whereby entertainment duty fees will be waived. This will total to an estimated RM3million.
More information can be obtained via Tourism Johor Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/tourismjohor/
Datuk Onn Hafiz also mentioned that the committee is in the process of developing both short and long term strategies to restore and improve the competitiveness of the state’s tourism industry post COVID-19 situation.
