Revenue from Tourism Tax must be distributed according to number of accommodations registered

IPOH: The Federal Government should allocate tourism tax revenue to state governmentS based on the number of registered hotels or inns, rather than overall distribution according to each region, said Datuk Nolee Ashilin Mohamed Radzi.
The Perak Tourism, Arts, Culture, Communications and Multimedia Committee chairman said this was because the distribution of tourism tax which is scheduled to be implementred on July 1 should be returned to the state governments based on the total tax collection in the states.
"For example, in Perlis the number of hotels registered is so small, so when the tourism tax is distributed on average following each region, it will not be fair to states with more hotels or inns.
"Therefore, we expect the distribution of tourism tax revenue to be returned to the state governments as a percentage of the number," she told reporters after attending a gathering with Perak Tourism Industry activists yesterday.
According to Nolee Ashilin, the division of tourism tax revenue to the state governments was to harmonise environmental sustainability and enable the government to implement the promotion of tourism in their respective states. — Bernama