Malaysia MP slammed for suggesting turning floods into tourist draws

PETALING JAYA • Malaysia's former tourism minister has been slammed on social media for suggesting that there is a potential for the country's annual floods to become a "tourism attraction".

Instead of crying over the situation, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz said, Malaysia should seek opportunities by promoting "voluntourism", or volunteer tourism.

"If you know it is coming, start planning now. Maybe we can have voluntary tourism where people come to the country to help us with the floods, and it is not about them coming here just to enjoy but for them to also learn," he was quoted as saying by Sinar Harian's English portal Sinar Daily.

The Perak Member of Parliament also said the opportunity could be a silver lining while the country was facing economic challenges by attracting foreign tourists to join volunteer programmes during natural disasters.

"When our currency falls, it's time for us to promote tourism...

"The Singaporeans will come because they spend only one-third of their salary and, to them, our five-or six-star hotels are just so cheap," Mr Nazri added.

Citing the yearly floods in Kuala Krai, Kelantan, Mr Nazri said: "The flood is like a festival. Every monsoon, we have a flood festival, and people will come.

"Because now there is voluntourism, where foreigners come to do volunteer work and they pay (to buy tickets and so on)."

Netizens slammed the idea, saying that there was nothing attractive about life-threatening floods.

Some Twitter users said that instead of turning floods into an attraction, the government should work to prevent them.

Between Dec 17 and 19 last year, more than 18,000 people were evacuated from their homes to 64 temporary relief centres after floods hit the Klang district in Selangor, following continuous rain.

In the 2014 major floods in Kelantan, almost 200,000 people had to be evacuated from their homes, almost 25,000 of them from Kuala Krai. The authorities estimated infrastructure damage in the state to be at RM200 million (S$63 million) due to the floods.

THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK