Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (Matta) president Tan Kok Liang said that despite the extension of the wage subsidy programme to protect tourism staff, there were not enough incentives to stimulate the industry.
“The personal tax relief of RM1,000 that was extended to 2022 does not create a significant impact as the tax savings comes up to only about RM210 for a taxpayer under the 21% tax bracket.”
He said Matta had earlier requested for individual tax relief of RM8,000 to encourage people to travel.
“There were also no tax incentives for local companies organising trips or holidays for their workers within the country to boost domestic travel.”
However, Matta welcomed the RM60 million allocation to encourage domestic travel as a whole.
He also lauded incentives to preserve the environment, saying they might be able to promote Malaysia as a nature-based travel destination.
Malaysia Budget and Business Hotel Association (MyBHA) president Emmy Suraya Hussein was also disappointed with Budget 2022, arguing there was a general lack of long-term measures for the industry.
“Despite the interstate travel relaxation, budget hotels are still affected. We need funds to reopen our businesses because much of our savings has been depleted,” she told FMT.
She said budget hotel players would like to see an extension of the bank loan moratorium for the tourism sector and one-off grants to restart businesses in the sector.
“About 50% of our members have temporarily closed operations. We feel that the budget is not significant. We were also not called for consultations,” she added.
Meanwhile, Malaysian Association of Hotels president N Subramaniam said that overall, the budget was encouraging for the tourism industry, but players were still hopeful that there would be refinements in terms of implementation.
He also said the personal income tax relief for 2022 should have been set higher at RM5,000.
“The hotel industry has also requested an extension of the service tax exemption to increase the spending power of the people, but this was not announced and we hope that the government will reconsider it to boost tourism recovery.
“The industry is also looking forward to more details on the Penjana Tourism Financing and BPMB Rehabilitation schemes that could benefit stakeholders if made accessible at low or even zero interest.“
He also welcomed the grants and promotional funding to encourage tourism, arts and culture initiatives, as well as tax incentives for events.
In his Budget 2022 speech, finance minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz announced that the government would allocate RM1.6 billion to help the tourism sector recover.
He said RM600 million would be allocated for wage subsidies in the tourism sector, benefiting more than 26,000 employers and 330,000 employees.
Grants would also be given to companies that organise programmes related to arts and culture with an allocation of RM50 million.