Kuala Lumpur Sightseeing Package

This is another great strategies to promote Kuala Lumpur to visitors especially for international airline travellers. If you are on transit for at least five hours, you can now take the tour package of sightseeing Kuala Lumpur at a price of between RM28 (USD7) and RM95 (roughly USD25) per head.

The package "Showcase KL" were launched by the Federal Territories and Urban Well-being Minister Datuk Raja Nong Chik Raja Zainal Abidin recently. The package included a KLIA Express train journey and a "KL Hop On Hop Off" bus tour of Kuala Lumpur.

Visitors can have a closer look at tourists spots of their choice along the route of the KL Hop on Hop off bus tour. This is a great way of boosting the tourism industry in the country.

Where can you get the package offer?
At the Visit KL Counter at the KLIA satellite building between 6am and 10pm daily, including on public holidays.

The cost of the package:

18-year-old and above: RM95
7 to 12-year-old: RM84
5 - 11-year-old: RM46
below 4 years: RM28
free of charge for below one-year-old.

International transit passengers interested to try the package will have to  undergo Immigration screening before leaving KLIA and upon rejoining their flight.

Among the interesting attractions along the KL Hop on Hop off bus tour are Aquaria KLCC, National Museum, KL Towers and Bird Park where the participants can have a discount to visit those places.

Read HERE for more stories about this package.

Expensive Parking

IMG_3789
Originally uploaded by wanhashim

If you one of those who have to drive to work in Kuala Lumpur, most of the time you will have no choice but to park your car at one of the empty lot converted as parking areas. The charge is based on per entry basis and the rate is very demand oriented.

In the above picture, the charge is RM8 per entry. If you parked your car for a day let say 8 hours then the rate is about RM1 an hour given that you did not have any urgent business that force you to drive your vehicle. If you do, then your RM8 is only for a few hours and if you are unlucky you have to re-enter the parking lot and pay another parking ticket.

The charge can be very expensive if you only wanted to park for a short while. For example if you only wanted to do some transaction in a bank, you will have no choice but to pay the expensive parking rate for nothing. I think the operator of the parking lot knew that most of users are so desperate to find a parking place that most of the short term users will have to use their service.

The operator will change the rate based on demand. If the demand is so high, the rate can go up to RM10 per entry (I think they can even go up to RM20 per entry). If the demand is low, the rate can is reduced to RM5 only.

Well, if you have a piece of land in the heart of a city, don't develop the piece of land. But, charge people for using the land. In this case, you can work out the mathematic on the average daily income that they reaped from the users.

Therefore, unless there are efficient and comfortable public transport especially during peak hours, users can park their cars at home and ride the public transport which is much cheaper.

No Waiting

No Waiting
Originally uploaded by wanhashim

Under this big "No Waiting" sign are several taxis waiting for passengers. By definition, taxis cannot wait for passengers but they have to pick up any passengers that are requesting for their service. May be the sign is kind of misleading because the picture on the signage is a Bus and not applicable for taxi. The signage might be right. But still the taxis are still operating illegally by charging passenger not using their meter.

On the contrary, "Hire Car" can wait at certain designated stations waiting for passengers to use their service.

Taxi also needs to use their meter to charge passengers. The fee is based on the number of kilometres travelled. However, if you purchased taxi coupon at designated location such as at the Kuala Lumpur Central taxi counter, the taxi (if they are in the queue), can also accept the payment and will send passenger to the designated destination.

However, all rules are broken here. Taxi drivers are waiting for passengers who are willing to use the taxi service. The taxi drivers usually offer the passenger certain amount of fee for the intended service, usually multiple times the price of using the metered taxi. They also resorted to using touts to lure passengers to use their service.

I had an experienced once where I heard of a taxi driver of offering an intended passenger about RM70 to send him to the nearest hotel. The distance is not that far to the intended hotel. Upon hearing the offer, I had to resort to other mode of transport to go to the other places.

The difficulty is that during peak hour, there is no taxi willing to stop to pick you up and if you are desperate enough to go to certain locations, then you can end up being a victim of these taxi services.

In order to solve this problem, all of the popular areas (such as the Kuala Lumpur City Center, KLCC) need to have taxi counters where passengers can purchase taxi coupon which rates varies based on the destination and also designated taxi queuing areas need to be provided at the vicinity in order for all of the taxis to wait in queue to send passengers.