KUALA LUMPUR: The Tourism, Arts and Culture Ministry has achieved major success in its first 100 days during the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as under the premiership of Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob.
Presenting the ministry's 100 days of work "report card", minister Datuk Seri Nancy Shukri attributed a huge chunk of the success achieved to the major-generals that have been manning the ministry's war room since her return on Sept 1.
Nancy said the establishment of the war room, which includes representatives from various agencies from the tourism, art and cultural sectors, is aimed at assisting the ministry in achieving the goals laid out under Aspirasi Keluarga Malaysia (AKM).
"When I came back in the office for the second time as minister, I had three things in mind, because we have missions and visions that we need to achieve.
"First, was to establish the war room, for me to understand and know what is going on, and what our focus was.
"Secondly, my team set up an email account, ideasfornancy@gmail.com for the public to give us feedback on what they wanted us to do or to improve on.
"And thirdly, was to continue improving and focusing on effective communication from the grassroots level to the top management," she told the press when presenting the ministry's 100 days achievement at the Malaysian Tourism Centre (MaTic), in Jalan Ampang, here, recently.
Nancy said the hard work invested within the war room had led to the ministry's first notable AKM achievement which was the reopening of Langkawi as a pilot project for the domestic travel bubble, as well as cultural premises.
"After the launch of the travel bubble scheme, we witnessed that the project had successfully revitalised domestic tourism and cultural activities, especially on the island.
"The revival contributes to the increase of income for tourism and cultural industry players on the island, and this has also been seen elsewhere when the interstate and the inter-district travel ban was lifted.
"The tourism industry players have been able to welcome tourists and revive their businesses slowly".
Nancy said the second AKM goal, which is the redemption of incentives allocated for the public, was another huge success achieved under its 100 days.
"We allocated over 168,000 vouchers worth RM5.87 million to Malaysians, distributed through various channels such as airlines, hoteliers registered under Malaysian Association of Hotels (MAH), cultural products and book purchases.
"The redemption of these vouchers is open until Dec 31. Up to Nov 8, 59.42 per cent, which is equivalent to RM3.49 million vouchers, have been redeemed, received and used by the public.
"The remaining have been redeemed, however they have yet to be collected or used."
Nancy said the agencies had been creative in organising programmes to distribute the vouchers, while also cultivating the love for arts and culture among Malaysians.
"For example, the National Library has organised the 'Semarak Membaca' programme, in collaboration with the Malaysian Book Publishers Association (MABOPA), National Book Council of Malaysia (MBKM) and Malaysian Booksellers Association (MBA).
"They have been allocated 88,500 book vouchers worth RM885,000, which have been distributed to 167 physical bookstores, and one online bookstore, which is the eSentral bookstore. Consumers are entitled to redeem RM10 worth of vouchers with every receipt worth RM20.
"The National Art Gallery has organised the 'Buy Art Malaysia' programme in conjunction with our AKM aspiration, with the participation of 30 private and public galleries.
"Art collectors are entitled to claim vouchers worth RM500 and RM1,000 under this programme, which runs from Oct 30 till Nov 20, with the concept of 'first come first serve.
Nancy said 95.5 per cent of vouchers allocated for the airline companies have been redeemed, however, only 57.9 per cent have used their vouchers up to Nov 8.
The ministry's third goal achieved under AKM is getting more local craft entrepreneurs to market their products on digital platforms, namely MyCraftShoppe.
"We aimed to intensify the promotion of local craft products, and one of the ways to do it during this pandemic is having the entrepreneurs utilise digital platforms.
"We targeted to get 100 entrepreneurs to register for this initiative.
"However, the number of registrations exceeded our expectations when we received 159 entrepreneurs.
"We received the most registrations from Sabah, Sarawak, Terengganu and Perak, with Sabah having the highest number of craft entrepreneurs".
Looking back, Nancy said the three notable achievements were based on six main core visions.
"Through the AKM initiative, we aspired to restructure the economy, guarantee the country's peace and security, improve social welfare, improve the overall infrastructure, strengthen the unity within Keluarga Malaysia and empower service delivery.
"We hope to improve people's living standards, whether in terms of economy, education, infrastructure, culture or religion when we targeted to achieve 100 per cent of the three AKM initiatives".
Moving forward, Nancy hoped her major-generals in the war room would continue the synergy achieved after braving 17 months of crisis during the pandemic.
"What I've aspired to do in the ministry is to establish effective communication from the ground level of the ministry to the people I serve, because as an agency or a ministry, our position is considered the gates to the country.
"We have also been having constant engagement with our overseas directors to ensure that our communication is effective, and so that they know what's going on in the country."