Travelling to new places may bring a lot of wonders to one’s life but to some people, travelling may come with worries especially to solo travellers. The main concern that most tourists and travellers often think of before visiting a place is always the safety and cleanliness aspect. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory states, safety is human’s second priority after physiological needs. If a person is able to feel safe in a place, it acts as a pull factor to motivate the person to travel.
Selangor is one of the most-visited States in Malaysia, most probably because the State emphasizes on safety to protect both the citizens and travellers. The Selangor State Government with its authority ensures the State to be well-supervised from all aspects of safety so the citizens and travellers can roam the State with fewer worries.
One of the things which would come across a tourist’s mind when visiting a place is whether or not the place is supervised by the Tourist Police. Good news to all; the State of Selangor has a dedicated law enforcement unit called the Tourist Police who are often placed at popular areas such as Batu Caves, Sepang Goldcoast, KLIA and LCCT. They will guard and patrol around the areas to curb any mischief conducts or crimes. With the presence of the Tourist Police, tourists especially women and solo travellers will not have to worry much on their safety. The headquarters of Selangor’s Tourist Police is located in Bandar Sunway, Petaling Jaya.
As an act pretty much associated with travelling, shopping should be able to be carried out in confidence too. Some travellers may be afraid of pickpockets and robbery. As mentioned earlier, malls and shopping centres in Selangor are one of the areas placed with the Tourist Police; hence tourists will be able to shop at ease.
On the other hand, Sunway Pyramid located in Bandar Sunway is the first mall in Malaysia equipped with the ‘panic button’ feature. Shopping centres in Selangor are also often equipped with ample number of CCTVs and mall guards to maintain the safety of their visitors. The guards have been trained to familiarise with the footprint of these premises in preparation to help visitors with finding their ways around.
Selangor is also blessed with natural attractions such as FRIM Kepong, Chilling Waterfalls, Kanching Waterfalls Eco Park and Chongkak Park and Resort. Tourists may wonder on the safety and cleanliness of these places. Do not worry, they are well taken-care of by trained staff, as well as placed with jungle rangers to extend help in times of need. Besides, there are also sufficient dustbins located in these areas to maintain cleanliness. In 2018, Tourism Selangor collaborated with Firefly Sdn Bhd in a CSR campaign, “Clean & Green” to maintain the cleanliness of Sungai Kanching Waterfalls Eco Park. The campaign which required tourists to collect rubbish in the area for lucky draw entries received an overwhelming response from the participants.
Furthermore, restaurants and F&B outlets in Selangor are inspected regularly by the Ministry of Health and given grades in terms of cleanliness. Therefore, tourists have the choice to choose from either grade A or B restaurants to dine or order takeaways from. Recently, the Municipal Council of Subang Jaya (MPSJ) has enforced stricter SOPs for the grading of F&B premises. The new regulations are to ensure restaurant owners to follow the guidelines in operating their businesses. This helps the public and tourists to feel a lot safer and more convinced to dine-in or order food from these premises.
In addition, a stricter set of SOPs will be imposed on food establishments throughout the State of Selangor following the Covid-19 pandemic. People are also encouraged to order food via delivery services or takeaways. However, they can still dine at food premises by ensuring social distancing with a table distance of at least 1 meter from one another.
Being ahead of the game, the Selangor State Government has introduced the SElangkah: Langkah Masuk dengan Selamat mobile application which is the first to be developed and established in Malaysia for Covid-19 contact tracing. Dato’ Seri Amirudin Shari, Dato’ Menteri Besar Selangor in a statement on May 4th said, SElangkah was built to virtually track the movement of the public in effort to control the outbreak of Covid-19 in Selangor.
The application which is managed by Menteri Besar Selangor Incorporated (MBI) uses a basic concept of a fast and easy individual registration before entering a business premise in the State by scanning their respective QR code. The access to this information is granted to the Selangor’s Health Department, Government agencies and local authority or Pihak Berkuasa Tempatan in order to track an individual for an efficient process of health screening and quarantine in the case of confirmed Covid-19 cases in any of the premises.
Business operators in the State of Selangor are also urged to conduct a temperature screening prior allowing entry, as long as placing hand sanitizers at their premises. Some premises even set up a term on which customers are required to wear masks and impose a limitation on the number of customers allowed to be in the premise in order to reduce congestion. There are more than 700,000 registered businesses for the use of the application SElangkah as of May 7th.
Next, there is an extensive list of accommodation for tourists to choose from in Selangor, ranging from budget hotels, chalets, homestays, service apartments, to luxurious hotels and resorts. Most of these accommodations are registered with local authority and safe for travellers. They also use electronic keys instead of conventional ones, even for budget hotels, and are well-equipped with CCTVs. In order to maintain the safety of guests during their stay post Covid-19, hotel operators in Selangor are urged to follow stricter SOPs listed out by the Malaysian Association of Hotels (MAH) and Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture Malaysia (MOTAC).
Firstly, hotel operators are required to implement social distancing measures, as well as provide training to staff on the SOPs for business operation during the Recovery Movement Control Order (CMCO). They are also required to enhance their cleaning measures especially on high-touched areas such as light switches, door handles, and TV remote controls. Standard temperature screening, and the placement of sanitization and disinfection products is mandatory. In regard to food preparation, kitchen staff need to abide to the SOPs such as undergo health screening, and wear face masks and gloves at all times when handling food. New and stricter hygiene protocols and air quality control have also been introduced for safety regulations.
In addition, Golf Clubs in Selangor are back in operation imposing tight hygiene SOPs to ensure the safety of the golfers. Members are required to check-in and non-members are required to fill in Health Declaration Forms. Both members and non-members must undergo a mandatory health screening. On top of that, separation plastics are installed in all buggies, only 4 golfers are allowed on the tee box, golfers need to ensure a 1-meter distance when queuing and starter huts are not open for seating. These SOPs are imposed to ensure the Golf Clubs will be back in business, with an emphasis on safety and cleanliness. Some Golf Clubs in Selangor such as Kota Permai Golf & Country Club have also taken extra precautionary measures with the introduction of “contactless ball extractors”.
Mr. Azrul Shah Mohamad, General Manager of Tourism Selangor in a statement shared, “Tourism Selangor welcomes the re-opening of domestic tourism with open arms as many know, tourism is among the most-affected sectors due the Covid-19 turmoil. The implementation of RMCO allows business operators in Selangor to plan and execute new strategies to attract tourists and rebuild the economy. The Selangor State Government through Tourism Selangor has also set a new target of 6 million tourist arrivals in 2020. This is not impossible to achieve as Selangor had managed to reach its target of welcoming 7.7 million tourists in 2019”.
“To foster domestic tourism, Tourism Selangor has introduced the “Pusing Selangor Dulu!” Campaign which focuses on the domestic travel market. We are also working on organising E-Travel Fair 2020 on our digital platform as one of the initiatives to effectively promote and market travel packages as well as discounts offered by our tourism operators. Tourism Selangor will also collaborate with the Media for Media FAM Trip Programmes, as well as with the industry players for promotional Programmes such as “Jelajah Pesona Selangor” and scheduled Business-to-Business (B2B) sessions, En Azrul Shah further shared.
With all that being said, it is evident that Selangor is indeed a safe and clean State to visit. The Selangor State Government is doing their best to ensure the safety of both the residents and travellers in the State, especially after the strike of Covid-19. It is done by implementing stricter SOPs and hygiene protocols to all business operators in the State including the ones highly-sought by tourists such as retail, accommodation and F&B.
The regulations concerning safety and cleanliness will be looked into regularly for the need of being tightened following the outbreak. As domestic tourism is now re-open from June 10th, the State of Selangor’s emphasis on the standard of hygiene proves the State is a tourism-friendly destination providing optimum comfort. Tourism Selangor as the State’s Tourism Promotion Board will continue highlighting the State’s tourism attractions and appeal on their revamped official website, www.selangor.travel and social media accounts, welcoming domestic travellers to explore the State with their catchy “Pusing Selangor Dulu!” tagline.
For more information, please log on to the official website of Tourism Selangor at Selangor.Travel.