UNESCO has given its final warning signal. Langkawi may lose its GEOPARK status. ‘Naturally Langkawi’ may just be ‘formerly Geopark Langkawi’. Can the authorities be serious? Why are we taking things for granted to the extent that we have gotten a yellow card? There is just one more year to go. Getting it is an honour not a privilege. Having it is a privilege which will ensure more tourists come and thus we get more earnings for continuous development and preservation of the Geopark status.
Frankly, I love Langkawi. I love Bali, I like Phuket but I still love Langkawi. During the island hoppings, you can see all the clear white sandy beaches. You can swim in Lake Dayang Bunting. Somehow I go there yearly and my lar trip was just over one month ago. There were many foreign tourists. I seriously don’t think many of them would know about Langkawi if the promotion was not done right. True, many things can be better. However, losing the GEOPARK status would be foolish. I think the Langkawi Gateway can be forgotten once the status is lost. Look at Georgetown and Melaka. The tourism number continue to grow with UNESCO status. Both are developing just fine thus far with Melaka still clean by any Malaysian city standard. This is despite the fact that there are over 14 million tourists visiting Melaka in 2013!
I just hope that more medias would highlight this fact and pressure the right people to do the right thing. The 4 million tourists who visit Langkawi in 2013 definitely would like Langkawi to still be a UNESCO Geopark. While that may not be the main attraction but it certainly would be a negative publicity to Langkawi if that really happens.
written on 16 July 2014
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