Penang is the first State and may be the first destination to advocate the concept of “Responsible Tourism” to be integrated into the travel and tourism industry during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Responsible Tourism was defined in Cape Town in 2002 alongside the World Summit on Sustainable Development. This definition, the Cape Town Declaration is now widely accepted and has been adopted by the World Travel Market in 2007 for World Responsible Tourism Day.

“Responsible Tourism is about “making better places for people to live in and better places for people to visit.” Responsible Tourism requires that operators, hoteliers, governments, local people and tourists take responsibility, take action to make tourism more sustainable.

“In relation to the tourism during this pandemic, we would like to propose the concept of Responsible Tourism to be applied during the pandemic and it is timely for all the stakeholders and also tourists to practice Responsible Tourism,” said state exco for Tourism, Arts, Culture and Heritage, Yeoh Soon Hin in a press statement..

He also added that Penang is putting emphasis on safety and hygiene, which would be important to regain traveller’s confidence on safe travel and important for current branding and to strengthen Penang promotional efforts. We have been putting necessary preparations in place to ensure that Penang attraction is equipped with all responsible SOPs for the safety of the tourists and also workers.

“Responsible Tourism also requires tourists to follow the rules and guidelines imposed by the local government and operators for their own safety and also to contribute efforts in curbing the spread of virus.

“We must be proactive at the position to capture growth and rebound at the right opportunity.

“We have started working towards recovery – the Tourism Recovery Action Plan – since a few months back even when travelling is not permitted to consistently keep the branding strong as a destination through communications including digitally,” said Yeoh.

Yeoh explained that this is part of the effort not only to educate the importance of preventive and sanitisation routines in controlling the outbreak of Covid-19 but also in building confidence towards Penang as a tourism destination.

“Since April, we have been making preparations, through various engagement and roundtable sessions with stakeholders and tourism players. Following that, Penang State Government has also set up two committees namely Tourism Penang Next Normal Taskforce and Penang Tourism Economy Recovery Advisory Board to ease the industry for the transition towards the new norm and very importantly, work towards tourism economy recovery efforts.

“We are putting emphasis on safety and hygiene, which would be important to regain traveller’s confidence on safe travel and important for current branding and to strengthen Penang promotional efforts. We have been putting necessary preparations in place to ensure that Penang is at a position to capture growth and rebound, at the right opportunity.

“We are also encouraging partnerships among tourism players among hoteliers, tourist attractions, airlines to introduce attractive and affordable packages.

“We are targeting to focus on domestic tourism first as a start, in order to build tourism demand and at the same time, would be cheaper and nearer, even for a weekend trip with family and close friends.

“The demand might not build up immediately due to current sentiment towards travelling, but the state government have launched zero-interest Skim Peka 2.0 loan for eligible tourism players which is open for application now until 12 June to alleviate the financial burden of the operators, to ensure that the industry can be more prepared when tourism industry demand returns in full swing,” added yeoh.

To this regard, there are a few partnerships and incentives they are still studying and will be announcing at a suitable time.