Bright Future For Tourism In Perak.

The road map for the future of tourism in Perak is bright said Datuk Nolee Ashilin Mohd Radzi at the opening of the seminar entitled “Industrial Heritage Business Development And Marketing Approaches”.

“Heritage is the key product of our tourism industry. The idea is to alleviate the tourism industry in our state while at the same time providing community benefits to learn and obtain long term sustainability” said Nolee.

Datuk Nolee with Presenter Fergus Tyler Maclaren and Moderator Kenneth Wong.

The seminar, organized by Tourism Perak with PIC Consultancy was held in conjunction with the Perak Festival of Ideas and Pangkor International Development Dialog and held at the Kinta Riverfront Hotel. It was attended by industry players, tour operators and heritage enthusiasts.

Among the factors announced by Nolee was

1.The approval of Kinta Valley Geopark by the National Geopark Committee on the 20th July 2017 to be recognized as a National Geopark.

“The branding of our tourism activities is very important and with the Kinta Valley Geopark status will bring in a lot more variety in terms of packages, activities and support services that we can offer to tourists.

Unlike the recognition that comes with the USESCO World Heritage status this is less restrictive and very relaxed as the Geopark activities.  There are no restrictions to what we can do except when it comes to conserving the area as part of the Geo-park itself so the potential is going to be huge.

2. We were chosen as one of the pilot projects as part of the national Eco Tourism Plan for the Taiping- Kuala Sepetang – Larut Matang - Selama –  Batu Kurau cluster for development starting next year where we will be improving high impact projects to become catalysts to further growth activities geared toward tourism.

3. We are also geared towards repositioning our Eco-tourism area namely Taman Alam Kinta or Kinta Nature Park

It is now gazetted under the Perak State Park and we are in the midst of promoting and opening it as a state park other than a normal park.

4. We are also repositioning Lembah Tempurung and Gopeng as a eco-tourism haven so that for any eco-tourism activities if will be included in the same area

Healthy workshop by the participants.

5. UNESCO World Hertiage site  Lenggong Valley.

We received the recognition before we were ready to receive more visitors to the site. This is an important because it is situated in rural area and is a main area which is community based tourism. With this status we will be able to create more job opportunities.

The challenge here is for the local community to grab the opportunity but at the same time not exploit the area but ensure a long term sustainable program for a heritage site.

6. Heritage Buildings are at the core recognition given by Lonely Planet to Ipoh and the region. Sustainable Development of novelty products such as Kellie’s Castle and TT5 the Last Tin Dredge and have value beyond words and so too the sustainability of Old  town and Taiping.

JAG