Will Visitors Pay For Interesting Or Useful Local Information

---

 
I WAS piqued by the report “Tourism Selangor: RM500,000 to train local tour guides for VSY 2025”. I was a tour guide in 1973 and licensing of tourist guides was introduced two years later, making it an offence to offer guiding services without a valid tourist guide license.
The report’s title stated that money would be spent on training tour guides for this Visit Selangor Year. Subsequent paragraphs disclosed that at least 50–80 individuals from all districts, including young people and retirees, will be trained under the Selangor Community Hosts programme.
The Selangor Community Hosts programme ought to be lauded, as trainees will benefit much from the training. However, I am not sure whether their services will be legitimate or in demand.
Section 21, Act 482 (also known as the Tourism Industry Act 1992) provides that no person shall act, or hold himself out, as a tour guide unless he is licensed under the act. Violation of the provision is a legal offence and can be fined not more than RM7,000 or imprisoned not more than two years or both.
(Image: The Star)The Tourism, Arts and Culture Ministry (MOTAC) can exempt individuals without a tourist guide licence to act as a guide in certain situations, such as for small groups and point-to-point transfers. But they would need to obtain an exemption letter from the ministry in advance.
The Selangor state government could have secured blanket approval from MOTAC to allow trained community hosts to act as tourist guides in their local areas. Even so, there may be other legal constraints that must be overcomed.
When launching the “Enjoy Kajang” campaign at the Kuala Lumpur Sentral station on Feb 22, Selangor local government and tourism committee chairman Datuk Ng Suee Lim mentioned that community hosts will bring in tourists.
Will they be providing transport for visitors from wherever they are to their districts and also to various attractions upon arrival?
If so, it will be against the “Tour Operating Business and Travel Agency Business” (TOBTAB) regulations, as only licensed inbound tour companies are permitted to organise, sell and operate tour services in Malaysia, not individuals including licensed tourist guides or community hosts.
In any case, will there be a demand for services to be provided by community hosts? Domestic visitors willing to pay for guiding fees will be mostly the elderly who can afford to pay. But younger people would prefer to use their smartphones to obtain information at their fingertips.
In previous years, I have advocated the development of destination apps, which would contain all the interesting and useful information, allowing visitors to search and book easily, paying for reservations when needed, and using it for navigation upon arrival without opening folded maps.
But with the proliferation of fake websites and phishing links, smartphone users are wary of downloading apps, which may contain malware to hack the phone and bank accounts. With the advent of artificial intelligence, information can easily be obtained on the spot round the clock.
For example, ChatGPT was released in November 2022, allowing users to have text-based conversations with the chatbot. Later, using a compatible app, one needs to only speak for the app to process the speech, send it to ChatGPT, and the response will be read out clearly.
Although AI is not perfect, the answers are likely to be better than most well-trained tourist guides or community hosts.
(Image: CNN)The information provided is current and more updated than what was compiled and learned years ago by students, trainers, tourist guides and community hosts.
A good example is the video released on Feb 22 by a very well-known Japanese couple video influencers residing in Malaysia, who have been to more interesting places and enjoyed the best foods in our country than almost all Malaysians.
Their honesty is much like Japanese courtesy – at the highest level. They gave the thumbs up after using ChatGPT to recommend them the itinerary for a one day excursion around Kuala Lumpur, including where to go from where they are for all their meals and interesting places.
Those who wish to try it out will get the best answers if they ask the most intelligent or precise questions, and artificial intelligence will get better rapidly and with more options available after DeepSeek was unveiled in January 2025.
More than ever before, success lies not so much on remembering and regurgitating information, but more on asking the right questions and improving the answers generated by AI.
But community hosts would be very popular if allowed to be drone pilots in their area, as visitors would love to have their local exploits recorded from the air.
Finally, a well-travelled veteran has this to say: “I generally find professional tour guides uninteresting and too scripted. They are mostly repeating what can be found in guidebooks. So I rarely hire them and much prefer to have a local show me what interests them, with no script.”
Therefore, if you are a local expert not just in geography but also history, have the contacts and knows the background of interesting individuals particularly those surviving, can communicate well and are naturally friendly, you are a true gem in the local community, with or without training.
YS Chan is master trainer for Mesra Malaysia and Travel and Tours Enhancement Course and an Asean Tourism Master Trainer. He is also a tourism and transport business consultant.
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of  MMKtT.
- Focus Malaysia.

---