An analysis of the laws and policies governing the tourism industry in Malaysia :a quest for a regulatory framework /by Nuraisyah Chua Abdullah

Abstract

Tourism industry plays a key role in Malaysia’s economy. However, there has been an absence of comprehensive policies on the industry and part of the reasons lies in the fact that there is no one set of laws that could be said as comprehensive and able to provide the framework for the tourism industry. By acknowledging that tourism industry, being one of the oldest industry in the world, is influenced by Islamic teachings, therefore, it follows that reference to the Shari>cah can be the ideal option in designing the complete framework for laws and policies for the tourism industry. However, such approach has not been taken in Malaysia. Findings indicate that the laws and policies to regulate the industry have been put in place mostly as a reaction to developments in the industry. This underlines the lack of planning and coordination between the states and between federal and state governments. To a large extent this has been due to the existence of overlapping of powers between the federal, state and local authorities. The problem has escalated when certain states were controlled by political parties in opposition to the central government. However, the overlaps in jurisdiction should not be a reason not to cooperate to formulate laws to regulate tourism industry in Malaysia. Political parties and rivalries should not be a problem indeed. Here lies the importance of realising the crucial role of tourism in the economy and of course the democratic nature of politics. Apart from that, inconsistent policies adopted by the federal government so far—despite the novel objective of facilitating the tourism industry—have not been good to national identity. These policies have also been at odd with the environment. Thus, the study proposes that while the management of the globalisation process is for federal authorities to deal with, the states and local authorities should be allowed to handle matters not falling under the former. Local communities should also be given more space to get involved in tourism ventures. This leads to the next proposition of this study; namely, the participation of public interest groups and public participation in the proceedings of the courts. Indeed, there is enough justification for this under the existing public law theory. As far as the research methodology is concerned, while fact-finding is primarily library-based, some interviews have also been conducted. These include discussions and interviews with the policy-makers and major players in the industry. Since tourism is concerned with wide combination of sub-sectors, laws and policies from selected ASEAN as well as the Commonwealth and European countries, United Kingdom and the United States are referred to in situations where it is necessary and suitable for the Malaysian context.