SIBU: Tourists and visitors are urged to enquire from Tourist Information centres, registered tour agencies or at hotel receptions about the places they intended to visit.

Minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture, Youth and Sports Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah gave this advice yesterday in response to the recent report carried by The Borneo Post, of a Canadian tourist, Philip Green, who felt cheated by someone who claimed to be tourist guide in Kapit.

The minister said they should only engage registered tour guides and not just anyone they met in the street.

“My advice to tourists and visitors from outside Sarawak…to be careful when engaging with unregistered tour agencies or tourist guides. I am unsure whether the so called tourist guide is a registered one but it looks like he is just someone he (Green) met along the street.”

Green was recently charged RM260 for a half-day tour of what he thought was a traditional longhouse.

“I don’t know his name. He introduced himself to me saying he was able to fulfil my wish to visit an old longhouse.

When we reached the longhouse, it was empty and I was told later they moved to a new longhouse. Nothing left in the longhouse – no people, nothing,” Green said.

A civil servant on Gawai Dayak leave learnt of Green’s predicament invited the visitor to his longhouse at Ulu Sungai Melipis.

Meanwhile, Sarawak Central Region Hotel Association chairman Johnny Wong Sie Lee, said a registered tourist guide holds a guide permit.

“I am sorry to hear that a tourist was cheated again. In fact, it was the fault of the tourist, (as) he should not simply go to someone who claimed himself to be tourist guide. A proper tourist guide must hold a guide permit which is in a form of card,” he explained.

Wong added that there are so many hotels in Kapit and most of them have good contact with local tour operators.