Busy weekend: Crowds patronising shops along Jalan Tan Hiok Nee in Johor Baru. — THOMAS YONG/The Star
JOHOR BARU: For visitors, a Sunday morning here means making a beeline for the typical Malaysian kopitiam fare.
And since it is a long Hari Raya Aidiladha weekend, it meant that the queue here was longer than usual.
Over at popular streets such as Jalan Tan Hiok Nee, Jalan Dhoby and Jalan Trus, the lines had been building up as early as 9am by tourists wanting a hearty breakfast at the classic kopitiam, especially those at decades-old shops.
“I waited for almost 20 minutes to get a seat at one of the coffee shops here,” said engineer M. Prakash, 34, who is from Singapore.
“Since Monday is a public holiday, I decided to bring my family for a short vacation. We drove from Singapore on Saturday and arrived here at about 7pm as traffic was quite heavy.
“Fortunately, the traffic heading into Johor Baru town was not too bad in the morning but there were definitely many people waiting outside the restaurants here,” said Prakash, adding that he enjoyed his time in Johor Baru.
China national Yao Hai Xia, who has been living in Johor for over 10 years, brought her daughter and a friend for a stroll around the town.
“I wanted my friend, who arrived from Shanghai not too long ago, to have a nice tour of Johor Baru. We have been walking around the streets here since morning and can see that there is quite a crowd.
“Unfortunately, some shops are closed since it is a public holiday but we still managed to have a good time and nice breakfast,” said Yao, 49.
Checks at the Causeway on Saturday showed that traffic had been slow heading towards Johor Baru side. However, traffic flow returned to normal between 9am and 1pm yesterday.
Malaysian Association of Hotels Johor chapter chairman Ivan Teo said most hotels were fully booked during this long weekend.
“It is normal for hotels to be fully booked during long weekends like this. We are glad to see that things are finally moving in the right direction for the tourism industry.
“Apart from hotels, other sectors such as food and beverage have also been seeing better days since the reopening of the border, especially during holidays,” he said.
However, he said there were other challenges such as having to cope with a lack of manpower.
He hoped the situation would improve soon.
Tourism Johor director Suhairi Hashim said that while they welcomed the return of visitors, especially those from neighbouring countries such as Singapore and Indonesia, the state government was also taking extra precautions in view of the increase in Covid-19 cases.
“We need to be ready for another wave of Covid-19,” he said, noting that some monkeypox cases were reported in Singapore.
“As such, the state government will be introducing the Majestic Johor Safe initiative as a way to keep industry players on alert.
“In order to get the certificate, industry players, including hotels, resorts and theme parks, will need to go through a series of evaluation conducted by various departments such as the Health Department as well as the Fire and Rescue Department,” he said.
Although the certificate would not be compulsory, he said it would help to boost the public’s trust in premises that attained it.
“The state government is expected to announce the initiative this month and we hope to give certification to about 50 premises by the end of this year,” he said.
State health and unity committee chairman Ling Tian Soon said tourism industry players had been urged to encourage their visitors to strictly follow the Covid-19 standard operating procedures.
“We have told industry players to be more alert to keep the Covid-19 situation in Johor in check. At the moment, the situation is under control with Johor reporting double digits number daily,” he said.
