A signboard at the guard house of an apartment in Penang barring homestays at the units. — KT GOH/The Star
EMPATHY, say psychologists, is the ability to feel other’s experiences.
Scientists found what they call mirror neurons in us: brain cells that fire when we observe someone performing an action in much the same way that they would fire if we performed that action ourselves.
Philosophers and sociologists opine that if more people have empathy, the world will be a better place.
Empathy may be needed in Penang soon over the issue of homestays.
Though it is labelled “homestays”, this is not the most accurate description because in rustic and scenic villages, licensed and regulated homestays are allowed.
The controversy is really around short-term stays or guest rentals, which most people call “Airbnb”, after the web portal that has come to epitomise this sort of accommodation business.
There are many facets to this economic revolution and everyone has valid points.
The primary side are the operators.
Property owners have a right guaranteed by the National Land Code to fairly earn returns from their assets.
I know one such owner who operated a short-term stay before the Covid-19 pandemic and placed colouring pencils and books in the home for children of her guests to enjoy.
She found much satisfaction and fulfilment when her guests praised her for her thoughtfulness in their five-star reviews.
And I know highly enterprising people who have taken short-term stay businesses to a “high” level.
They approach property owners with profit-sharing deals and run short-term stays for them.
It is really efficient. Using electronically coded locks on the homes to facilitate “self-check-ins”, the operators hardly need to do anything more than be available on the phone.
They optimise the ratio of profit to time and effort spent, and some handle more than 10 short-term stay listings at a time.
Next come the neighbours who are stakeholders because short-term guest rental businesses next door directly affect them.
Guests come in groups. They quite likely would talk and laugh, drink and be merry long into the night, like anyone on holiday.
Hence the saying: there goes the neighbourhood.
It can get worse, like how an Indonesian guest in a Pulau Tikus apartment many years ago jumped out of the balcony after an argument with his family; he ended up breaking both legs.
Or like how I put a trolley at my apartment’s ground floor recently for about a minute and a foreign family appropriated it to wheel their luggage to the front gate.
I had to roar in frustration before they took their bags by hand and abandoned my trolley.
One evening, I watched an ambulance drive into my apartment foyer to unload a sickly short-term guest, slumped in a wheelchair with an intravenous fluid bag dangling from a pole above him. (My apartment is near a hospital.)
Now that we are transitioning into the endemic phase of Covid-19, travellers are flocking back to Penang for the food, the beaches and the hospitals. (Penang’s healthcare travel revenue raked in RM750mil in 2019.)
Before short-term stays bloom once again, state local government, town and country planning committee chairman Jagdeep Singh Deo quickly declared last week that Penang endeavoured to ban them.
But shortly after, state tourism and creative economy committee chairman Yeoh Soon Hin declared that they wanted to see if short-term stay businesses in residential places could be licensed and regulated.
I do like how members of the Penang state executive council sometimes publicly reflect opposing positions.
It is a sign of political maturity – which echoes the maturity of our society – when state leaders of contrasting portfolios openly agree to disagree.
This issue will take time as there are many interests to address and it is hard to find consensus ad idem (Latin for “meeting of the minds”).
Property owners must gainfully benefit or the economic ramifications will crush even the smallest members of the economy.
Residents need their peace and quiet or the separation of where we work and live will collapse into havoc.
Hospitality businesses – hotels and resorts – which work so hard and spend so much to meet regulators’ demands, will lose business and may even close down.
Local councils owe us a duty of care and cannot allow their jurisdictions to become “cowboy towns”: to each their own and may the fastest gun win.
To Penangites aiming to get listed on Airbnb, take note that the state government is trying to sort out this issue and find a middle way for us.
