Liveable City

When I was reading this article, I can’t help thinking about Brunei’s Vision to be among the world’s top 10 countries in terms of GDP per capita and quality of life. So, I wonder whether Brunei (or any part of it) will one day ever make into the top 10 liveable cities in the world. According to Monocle, the ingredients to be a liveable city are:

“a mix of shops and services within walking distance, a good transport interchange within close proximity, green space as part of their residence, a good park with a body of water for a refreshing plunge nearby, independent businesses as a key feature of the community, a sense of security (police on the beat or a Japanese-style police box in their neighbourhood), excellent coffee (Melbourne's Fitzroy and St Kilda and Sydney's Potts Point frequently came up as neighbourhoods that had the ideal mix of restaurants, cafés and street life) and finally a little bit of grit and surprise.”

Judging from the latest result which saw many of the European cities topping the list, it looks like we still have a looonnnggg way to go.

Salaam.

Consumer Loyalty Switch

I received the email from RBA informing that they have achieved the e-ticketing target. So, what does that mean? Would they be able to improve their performance and sales? Because I can tell you that our loyalty to our national carrier has now been transferred to another, due to their poor service and sales strategy.

It happened about 4 weeks ago. When I received the (most) distressing news (ever in my whole life) from my sister, we wanted to fly home immediately, as in the very next day. It was on Saturday afternoon. I called RBA London and was answered by a machine saying that the office was now closed. I was shouting my heart out! This was Saturday afternoon in England! For goodness sake, why the BL**DY H*LL are you closed?!! Saturday in England is like THE day for business to make a lot of money.

Then we tried the RBA website. And guess what, the earliest travel date that I could book from their website was in the next 48 hours! I was gobsmacked! How ridiculous is this? RBA website is not some travel agent’s website trying to sell other airlines’ tickets. It is selling its own tickets, isn’t it? Why isn’t the website connected to their booking system? Honestly, I nearly fainted! Furthermore, the price it quoted me to travel in 3 days time (the earliest available seats) was double the normal ticket (about GBP1200 per person, if I’m not mistaken). Now where is the economics in that? Aren’t few cheaper seats better than empty seats? Charging higher fare for the last few seats is only justifiable and economically sound if there is no other airline travels to the same destination.

So, my husband calmed me down and suggested that I tried Singapore Airlines. Lo and behold! Within 5 minutes, the website gave me all the combinations of the travel dates that I could purchase, as early as the very next morning! And the prices…oh sweetness… (Thank You ALLAH!) were about GBP700 for an adult and about GBP500 for a child RETURN tickets inclusive of tax and services.

And YES, it was the double-decker Airbus 380. “WOW…” was the word uttered by my 2 daughters when they entered the aircraft.
And... RBA has lost in sales of 4 used-to-be loyal customers.

What I like even better is the fact that the SQ offered a straight, uninterrupted journey to/from Singapore, which is fantastic especially for my children. They get to have enough sleep. They sleep, we sleep. And therefore we wake up happy. Unlike RBA. We have to make a transit in Dubai, which honestly is the MOST annoying thing to do for travellers with children, especially the journey returning to London. Just imagine parents travelling with small children, who have to be woken up from their sleep- grumpy and tired, just to get off the aircraft and make a long walk along the Dubai airport just to board the aircraft again in 15 minutes. It is ridiculous!

And after sampling A380, with its fantastic uninterrupted, perfectly working personal screen in-flight entertainment [don’t even let me start on RBA’s in-flight entertainment! Which has to constantly be reset by the air-stewardess which results in my children getting angry and I (almost always) bang my head on the screens], my husband and I have promised ourselves that WHENEVER POSSIBLE, we will not use RBA for any long distance journey again. EVEN if there is a price difference. Because some things, such as COMFORT and peace of mind, are simply priceless.

I am no expert in airlines or even travel business but I’m sure it is all about satisfying customers. Plus the airline business is also in a perfect competition market. If RBA continues its shoddy sales strategy, funny flight route combinations and poor in-flight entertainment, I’m not surprised that it will be losing more and more of its customers.

Salaam.

Tourism oh tourism

This morning my husband and I were discussing about the place for our annual family vacation. Considering this year will be my last year in the UK, we thought of several places. Given our limited budget (otherwise we would love to travel to ALL places), we need to find a place which would give us the most value to the (limited available) money we spend, where the children and us can equally have a blast. In the end however, we settled for Disneyland Paris even though we went there 2 years ago.

For those of you who have been to Disneyland Paris, I'm sure you will agree that the place is super-fantastic and it has the X-factor (ie. the ability to make you feel, no matter how old you are, that you are in a fantabulous land and you wish you can stay there forever, well at least until your money runs out hehe). For those of you who haven't, then I can assure you IT IS :). And then there is Paris...the city of love *sigh*.

Now, if you apply the same rule to Brunei as a tourist destination, my question is what is our X-factor? What can we offer to a person who is spending his/her limited budget visiting our country? Or if I were the potential tourist, I ask WHY should I spend my hard-earned 700pounds (or any other amount for that matter) to come to Brunei?

Our quest to become one of THE tourist destinations in the South East Asia, in my opinion, is no easy feat. After all, look at our competitions in the region. However, I also think it is NOT impossible. Our main challenge is not that we don't have the factors that can make us THE tourist destination; rather it is the lack of will, determination and co-ordination among the relevant government departments.

Every time people bring up the issue of tourism, the first thing people talk about is that Brunei is a 'dry' country. The impression I get is that people seem to think that no alcohol= no tourists. What a lame excuse, really. It makes me wonder, do people really travel to consume alcohol (which they can find back home)? Now, before anyone argues FOR the changing of alcohol policy (I'm actually indifferent if the policy is reviewed), let us first look at what we can change without compromising our Islamic faith.

First, let's look at the beaches we have. We have beautiful beaches. Sadly however, the last time I visited them, they were dirty and not to mention the unspeakable state of the public washrooms. And for most of the time, nothing much was happening! Now, my questions are: 1) how expensive can it be to provide the service of beautifying our beaches? For goodness sake, you could even count the number of rubbish bins provided in each beach. For a rich country, I tell you, we are quite stingy! And 2) How difficult can it be to plan 12 types of happening activities for the 12 months of the year?

Next, we have our beloved old Kampong Ayer (Water Village) which is...simply old and dirty. I'm sorry I cannot help but 'smile' every time people mention Brunei being the 'Venice of the East'...Yes... that was aeons ago. Now, I'm not saying that we should just bulldoze Kampong Ayer. In fact, I am FOR preserving it. The challenge now is how to preserve it, beautify it and make it one of Brunei's X Factors. To me, this can only be done if ALL relevant authorities can put their heads together. This - the restoration of Kampong Ayer to its former glory, I believe, is the one project that actually deserves a foreign consultant. There are MANY issues to look into, among others are the sewerage system, an effective rubbish disposal, safety issues such as the fire-breaker system and the electrical system and last but not least, is the ways and means to make it into a desirable habitat of the 21st century!

And then, how about making Brunei into being THE family vacation destination? We used to have Jerudong Park. I tell you, it was the BEST! (At least in this region). Now, it has become a ghost park, which if the stories I heard were true, it really is a GHOST park (hehe). I wrote about JP some time ago (here) and my view still stands. Why aren’t we doing anything about it? Why are we wasting it? There is nothing you can do to UNDO the park so why don’t we make very good use of it? Honestly, I don’t understand. Really, if JP is restored, I think the tourism department won’t even have to spend another cent promoting Brunei.

Oh, and a PROPER Brunei Zoo, please! It is educational, fun and makes a natural (local and foreign) tourist destination.

Anyway, we have to accept the fact that Brunei can never be made into a 'wet and wild party' destination. But it doesn’t mean that Brunei can never be made into one of THE tourist destinations in the region. By declaring VISIT BRUNEI YEAR alone, doesn’t mean Brunei has become that destination. It needs combined efforts, strong will and obviously some spending. Otherwise, Brunei will forever be receiving this, this and this kinds of foreign tourists’ reviews.

Salaam.

The Dilemma of SME Part 2

Other issues faced by the SMEs in Brunei are the small market size and the lack of production incentives. With our population of about 380,000 really does not make Brunei an attractive place for any production or businesses. The small market size is further aggravated by cheap competition from import and high local cost.

Of course, somebody would reply that Brunei's SMEs should not limit themselves to the domestic demand and therefore should explore the regional and even the world market. True. But in truth that is easier said than done. Heeks (1998) in his paper (click here) pointed a number of related problems. First, he pointed that Brunei is an island of wealth in the sea of local poverty, at least in Borneo island itself. But it is also true in the context of ASEAN. Brunei is the second wealthiest country after Singapore (measured by the GDP per capita) which is followed by Malaysia and then Thailand. The remaining ASEAN countries are all earning less than US$1000 per capita – they hardly can become our potential markets! Second, where regional markets exist, someone has got there first, producing high quality products at low cost, thus presenting entry barriers to new-comers especially, one that lacks competitiveness.

Now, I’m not trying to be negative but sometimes we have to be realistic. I believe, in order for our local (and weak) SMEs to take their chance in the regional market, let alone the global market, they need assistance. For example, they need to know just what types of products to produce (for e.g. products that have high import growth rates in the global market) given their capabilities. And then of course they will also need (continuous) help in the area of capacity building to increase the products’ competitiveness especially in terms of the quality. Now, my question is, have we got these in place?

OK before we go further into the discussion of providing supports for export-production, let’s first look at the supports for local production. What incentives are we giving to the local producers? You would probably be thinking of the recently reduced corporate tax. Is that enough? The corporate tax, first of all, is not payable by sole proprietorships, which makes up a large chunk of our private sector. And then there is the ‘pioneer status’ scheme, but then again does it apply to a large number of our local SMEs? Correct me if I’m wrong but I think both the corporate tax and the pioneer status scheme are more directed towards the attraction of foreign investors (which I am in support of!). Now, my question again, what then are the incentives we are giving to the local small and medium enterprises? Our SMEs don’t even have complete access to crucial information such as market demand, input costs, availability of sources of production so on and so forth! And so how do we expect our local SMEs to go abroad and compete when they are not even developed domestically.

Now, back to the issue of the small domestic market. How do we then overcome this problem? At the top of my head, we can do this in 2 ways. One, through the natural population increase, which would take AGES! And two, through migration. OK, maybe in our case, not migration per se but we need to find ways to attract foreigners to come and spend in the country. How? One, we need to increase the number of tourists coming to Brunei. The tourism department, from the looks of it, is putting a lot of effort into this. [It’s ashamed really, that the apparent lack of policy co-ordination among other departments somehow weakens the effort (perhaps another post on this one)]. Two, we can attract foreigners who have high purchasing power to come and stay in Brunei. Brunei, being a tax haven has already 'the' appealing factor for anyone to come and live in the country :). However, there is a larger policy implication which is related to another policy taboo – land and property foreign ownership. Now, I’m no expert on this but personally I don’t really see the harm in allowing foreigners, who can make ‘economic contributions’ to purchase properties for the sole purpose of occupation (see for example how Singapore is doing it). Just imagine the spin-off effects of this policy! We can expect a boom in the housing sector and the construction industry, and then of course, the increase in the demand for ALL goods and services which will have the desired direct effect on our local SMEs. Oh I can picture a shift in the aggregate demand for Brunei! (And only then we can seriously talk about providing world-class services be it in education, health etc..)

Oh dear, there’s so much to think of! I do hope I am NOT the only one thinking about this. And while thinking is good, but please for the love of Brunei, DO something about it. I will probably write more on this topic.

Salaam.

Ghost town

Reading today's BB headline, reminds me of a blog page by a foreign blogger I read a few years ago. It said Bandar Seri Begawan was a ghost town. Nothing exciting to see. It looked like a 70s town. And the author couldn't believe that it was the city of one of the richest countries in the world. Of course when I read it, I was quite p***-off. How dare he!

But it is true. Nobody goes there anymore. There's nothing to see. Yayasan is no longer exciting. The last time we were there, half of the lights weren't even on. The place looked gloomy. There was no life, boring. Worse, had to pay for car-parking (a big NO to Bruneians!).

So HOW?

I really think the Bandar needs a new breath of life. First, the rentals have to go down. And somebody has to lead the way. I don't know what's the rental in Yayasan, but IT has to be the leader. If the rent in the yayasan building goes down, others will follow suit as competition or price war will set in. Second, the authority has to enforce the law (the piawaian PBD12 Min of Development, or whatever the name is). Owners MUST upkeep their building and properties. Any 'eyesore' has to be punished in a form of monetary fine. Third, make the Bandar HIP and HAPPENING. Make use of what we have! Everytime my husband and I go to the Yayasan building, we cannot help but discuss the potential of the building and its location. For instance, why keep the central open plaza void? You know, the space in between the 2 buildings. My husband keeps on saying it's a WASTED space. Sayang! Come on, get example from Singapore's Bugis junction. Get some traditional performances every week or every night even. Imagine, gulingtangan performances at night. With the view of the mosque. Fantastic! Get some small moving vendors to sell unique stuff and make it a rule that no two vendors can sell the same products.

I remember there was a talk about developing a 'water front'. What happened? Don't tell me the thingy that they built at the old custom was IT! Goodness! Please get private architects to design (with due respect, PLEASE!!! NOT the government architects!). Better still, set up a design competition among the local architect firms. Get the public to vote. No direct cash price, but the winning design will be used and the architect will be appointed (based on a government set-up fee). That way, the government would save some money and less headache.

I am sure there are ways to revive the Bandar. Don't let the development of other areas to be the reason why the Bandar is falling apart. We need to think outside the box. Be more creative. Don't be too conventional. I'm ON if anyone needs some ideas - will put my bestest thinking hat hehe.

Anyway, if there is a will there must be a way. But of course, you also have to put the money where the mouth is.

Salaam.

Jerudong Park, revive please....

As this week is the school mid-term break, we brought our girls to Legoland a few days ago. The weather was miserable (as usual) and we stayed overnight in one of the nearby hotels. All in all we spent like 350pounds (hotel+tickets+souvenirs+food+car fuel). And...my husband and I agree that Jerudong Park was a LOT better than Legoland.

I think a lot of people ask the same question, what happened to JP?? We had some really good rides both for adults and children. And the garden was fantastic! Personally, I think if we really want our tourism industry to grow fast, somebody has to revive the JP. Perhaps a new management and serious re-branding (actually I'm not even sure if we had a brand last time!). If JP gets its fame and glory back, just imagine the spin-off effect that it can create. The hotel occupancy, the food business, transportation and most of all the employment that it will create. I don't really know the mechanics of the amusement park industry but according to Forbes, it is big business, with a worldwide revenue of $US19 billion in 2001:

"One reason parks are multiplying so quickly is because
they're big business. The average price of a one-day ticket is around $25.
Multiply that by a family of four and add Grandma and Grandpa, overpriced
food, plush-toy souvenirs, mouse ears and perhaps a night or two in a
hotel...and you're looking at some serious dough."

I guess it is not a cheap business and perhaps in our case, in might be a complicated business. But then I am also thinking what a waste .... of time , effort and money spent. It's not as if we have to build it from scratch (I mean I would probably think the possibility of building it if we didn't have it!) we probably need help from people who are in this business and obviously need to spend (lots of) money to give JP some very effective CPR.

Some people would probably argue, why built it in the first place? But it is built! There's nothing you can do to un-build it. (Even if it wasn't built, Why NOT?) So, why not take the advantage and try make some money out of it? I don't know, why not privatise it? Everywhere people talk about niche, well...THIS is our NICHE. Tell me, where can you find another amusement park in the region that can rival our old JP? Even Legoland cannot compete with the old JP. If old JP is back, I am also sure that the attractiveness of Brunei as the next family vacation destination in the south east asian region will definitely be the envy of other competing destinations. Surely, family vacation makes up a large chunk of leisure travel. In the US, for example, family vacation makes up about 70% of total leisure travel. Otherwise, let's just pray that there are lots (millions please) of backpackers, nature-lovers and foreign pensioners who pick up Brunei brochure...*hehe*

If Brunei were to spend money to restore and perhaps even improve JP, I have a strong believe that it will be money well spent! However, I would like to stress the importance of a serious re-branding (not merely having some people wear some animal costumes that actually look scary and some clowns who don't play any trick, that walk around and make children cry...sorry, I don't mean to be patronizing but that was the scene the last time we visited JP, a year ago). With an exciting image, fantastic rides, yummy food, good entertainment both for me and my children and beautiful musical fountain garden, hey! I wouldn't mind spending a few hundred dollars staying in a nearby hotel and get 2-day family pass, in the next Brunei school holidays! And I'm sure a few hundred parents (in Brunei alone) wouldn't mind doing the same thing too!

Brunei Yakin!

Salaam.