Some businesses forced to pay staff 'GST-subsidy'
Published on: Tuesday, June 02, 2015
Kota Kinabalu: Business costs are rising as some employers here have to resort to pay GST subsidies to their staff burdened with higher living costs to boost their morale and cheerfulness to serve customers in their best spirit.Among the first to do so is Allen Ding, the executive director of Borneo Nemo Adventure Sdn Bhd, a Matta member involved with scuba-doo mini submarines for tourists operating off Manukan, Sapi and Mamutik islands with some 30 staff."Just before and after April 1 when the GST regime hit my workers with higher costs of living, I have to pay them at least RM50 each to help them meet higher living costs. I am in the tourism industry, I cannot afford to have my staff grumbly and dispirited by expenses not being able to provide the best service to my customers," said Ding.
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The monthly payment to his staff would put an additional RM1,500 at least to his business costs, but Ding deemed that it was necessary to survive in the competitive business world by providing optimal safe customer service.Since the decline of tourists from China last year, his business turnover had dropped from some RM3 million to about RM1 million, but nevertheless he is determined to ride out the challenges that come with the economic situation as the saying goes "when the going gets tough, the tough gets going."Asked if the tourists from China are coming back, Ding replied in the affirmative, but qualified his opinion: "Most of the mainland Chinese tourists are from the 'kampong', unlike before."Asked how he could discern so, he said: "I know from the way they behave, very demanding and fussy and they are stingier in spending money."
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So likewise, the Koreans and the budget European backpackers too are not known to be big spenders. Operators look forward to quality Western, Japanese and the Hong Kongers. The days when urbanised sophisticated China tourists would descend on branded shops and sweep things off the shelves like watches and bags are over in Asia, not Europe or America though, since the China government cracked down on corruption and extravagance.
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Some China tourists were observed pulling their wheeled luggage noisily from one hotel to another each day to differentiate their accommodation experiences. Thus these tourists take their hotel stay more seriously than say European backpackers staying in cheaper lodgings.In Venice, Italy, the city authority banned the noisy dragging of wheeled luggage along their cobbled pavements due to public complaints of such nuisance.Nevertheless, Sabahans travelling to New York via cheaper China Air flights over the North Pole route reported planes full of affluent China tourists heading to Big Apple for shopping even during the worst of winter cold and blizzard last season.At Terminal 2, some China tourists were seen bringing baby milk formula in tins back to their country, which was resented by people in Hong Kong leading to a demonstration over the 'locust-like' Mainlanders from Shenzen emptying supermarket shelves of these products.Sabah is just pining for more of such shoppers to increase business sales in the state. At the KKIA, retail shops' staff, could be observed sometimes, ignoring China tourists who enquired or waited for service, engrossed with their mobile devices, showing sulky faces. Unlike the graceful Thais providing attentive services, some Sabah retail personnel are not yet up to that level of responsible dutiful helpful character due to racial prejudice and lack of communicative finesse. Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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