Tourism Malaysia Engaging With Stakeholders To Turn George Town Into Disabled Friendly Destination

GEORGE TOWN (Penang, Malaysia), Nov 4 (Bernama) -- With the heritage status bestowed upon George Town and the booming tourist attractions in the vicinity, state Tourism Malaysia is actively engaging stakeholders to turn it into a disabled friendly destination. Its director Mazlan Araju said George Town is currently not considered a disable friendly site but the department targets to turn it into a disable friendly site as soon as possible. "We do not want to set any specific target and wait. We want it to be as soon as possible and so far, the stakeholders have been very open to the matter," he said after visiting the Wonderfood Museum here in Lebuh Pantai, Thursday. Besides engaging the stakeholders, the department is also holding talks with the state government to ensure that the target is achievable. He said being a non-disable friendly location is not the only problem faced by the heritage enclave because lack of ample parking space for vehicles, especially cars and buses, has also made it difficult to provide space for disable-friendly facilities. "Visitors have often voiced their concern on the parking issue and this will directly affect the satisfaction of the visitors towards us as a tourism state," he said. Mazlan said his office was currently in discussion with the state government to tackle parking woes in the area and to come out with a viable solution to provide ample parking space for everyone. Currently, there are more than 40 museums in the area with 25 vouched by the state tourism as interesting attractions in the area. "We want to diversify our tourist attractions and let the tourist know that we could offer more to them, not just the heritage and food but also museums," he said. Earlier, Mazlan and several officers from the tourism office had visited the Penang Gold Museum and Wonderfood Museum, the one and only sites of such splendour in the country and also South East Asia. Penang Gold Museum manager Denise Tang said the museum was opened in May last year and currently listed in Tripadvisor as a tourism attraction in the state "Till now, we have recorded approximately 50,000 visitors and tourists have come to experience the real feeling of the gold production process themselves," she said. Besides the Gold Museum, tourists could also see enlarged versions of local food made of silicon mixture and at the same time experience the art of food. The museum’s Marketing Executive, Jeffrey Yeong said the museum was opened in January 2015 and tourists from around the world had visited the site. "All the food replica in the museum are hand made by local artists and so far, we have received positive response from visitors," he said. -- BERNAMA