Malaysia will levy a travel tax on foreign tourists?

According to Malaysian media reports, Malaysian Minister of Tourism and Culture Datuk Seri Nazri confirmed that the hotel tourism tax originally planned to be levied on July 1 has not been prepared yet, so it will be postponed until August 1. Under the new measures, Malaysian citizens will not have to pay travel tax when staying in hotels with three stars or less, but all foreign tourists will have to pay travel tax.

Nazri said that the unit responsible for collecting tourism tax is the Customs Bureau. "We plan to start collecting this tax on July 1, but it is not ready yet, so we will temporarily move it to August 1; Of course, this is only our goal. Whether it is implemented smoothly depends on the preparations of the Customs Bureau. "

Nazri pointed out that the tourism tax to be implemented is divided into four levels, and 5-star hotels will levy a tax of RM 2 per night; 4 stars receive RM 1; 3 stars receive RM 5; Hotels with 2 stars and below will receive RM 2.5.

The announcement issued by the Customs Bureau a few days ago indicated that tourist tax will be levied on all hotels from August. However, on June 9th, Nazri confirmed that it would start to levy hotel tourism tax on July 1st. This issue immediately aroused the dissatisfaction of the government of East Malaysia, and Datuk Abdul Karin, Minister of Tourism, Art, Culture, Youth and Sports of Shazhou, even caused an altercation with Nazri, and the federal minister from East Malaysia also joined the minister of solidarity with Shazhou, which led to a storm in the city about the topic of tourism tax. Nazri later softened his stance, saying that the government was still formulating the relevant mechanism of tourism tax and would "flexibly handle the implementation date".

Personally, it is estimated that the collection of tourism tax from all foreign tourists will have an impact on Malaysia's tourism industry.