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Haze Threatens Malaysia Travel Business
The travel industry is expressing fears that the haze from Indonesian forest fires, which has driven away foreign travelers in the past, is posing a fresh threat to local businesses.
Malaysia sees its peak season for Arab tourists between now and September and tour operators said the recurrence of the acrid-smelling haze, after a brief respite last month, could hurt new bookings and arrivals.
Visibility in Kuala Lumpur was down to about five km (about three miles) on Friday as dust particles from forest fires in Indonesia combined with the dense humidity and local air pollution to create the stifling haze that residents have come to dread.
The fires are mainly due to illegal slash-and-burn cultivation on plantations on the islands of Sumatra and Kalimantan (Borneo). "I'm afraid if this is prolonged, and the air quality gets any worse, we could start seeing some very undesirable things happening to our business," said a local tour agent who handles mainly Arab and European travellers. Tourism is Malaysia's second biggest foreign exchange earner.
Middle Eastern tourists, who begin flocking in from July to escape the desert heat at home, are among the biggest spenders.
The cross-border pollution from Indonesia, an annual occurrence for more than 10 years, has at times affected neighbouring Singapore and southern Thailand as well. The haze hit tourism in Malaysia so badly in 1997 that the government has made the air pollution index a state secret since. The haze drifted over in June, but dissipated after Jakarta stepped up enforcement against illegal forest clearing. But Indonesian officials said even then that the problem could last at least another month.
The Environment Department in Malaysia on Friday classified the air quality in the country as "moderate". The department has various ratings for air, including "unhealthy", "very unhealthy" and "hazardous". "Actually, the level of pollution in the air itself is not that much, although the visibility is bad because of the high humidity," Rosnani Ibrahim, director-general of environment, told Reuters.
Kuala Lumpur
