Thanks To

The fieldwork which carried out from 31 August to 2 September would not succeed if the cooperation from all sorts of people. First, we would likely to give out a million thank you to Prof. Madya Dr Hamzah bin Jusoh and Prof Masitah bt Mohd Radzi for guiding us into the right path. Next, thank you to people/students who organize the buses and places to stay. To people of Kota Tinggi who gave out their best cooperation during our stay at Kota Tinggi. Museums Department, District Office of Kota Tinggi, Hotels, and all that involved during our fieldwork. Then again, thank you.

Sample Question:

How is the flood affected your daily lives?

• Bad
• No so much change
  

Sejauh manakah kesan banjir terhadap kehidupan seharian anda?

• teruk
• tidak banyak berubah

The Famous Bazar Kota, Kota Tinggi

This is the place to shop for textiles, clothes, scarf, and lots more . The place was badly submerged under the flood water and all the goods was ruined. Some of traders we met that day said they were traumatize with the flood incidents. Luckily, some of them got some help from state government and also NGOs. The place has not fully restore to its normal condition due to traders and sellers that went bankrupt.

Grand Waterlilies Hotel ; interview

Mayres Hotel

This picture is captured during an interview with Mayres's receptionist, Sham. The picture was dated September 3 2007.

Number of tourist after the flood

On September 1, we got the chance to asked traders and sellers around Kota Tinggi about the number of tourist before and after the flood. 60% of traders and sellers said the number of tourist decrease after the flood when compared to the number before flood hit Kota Tinggi. Majority of them also complain their business was not very well after the flood because the decreasing of tourist. Traders and sellers along associated with tourism(restaurant, handcraft seller, fireflies sightseeing business) felt their business was not so good compared to their fellows that was not associated with tourism industry (eg: fish mongers, local market, etc). Nevertheless, many traders and sellers have recovered since July 2007.

The questionnaire was distributed to tourists that come to Kota Tinggi. Among them are Singaporean, China, Japan and Malaysian. Total of questionnaire that was successful to distribute were 20 sheets. 8 questionnaires answered by local tourist, 6 by Singaporean, 4 by Chinese (China), and 2 by Japanese tourist.

Nasha Hotel

Once, this were a cafe at Nasha Hotel. The owner did not manage to restore the cafe part because of insufficient funds. The furniture and electronic device all have been damaged during flood.

Ancient Cemetery

This is an old cemetery located near a house. A few more were seen beside Makam Laksamana Bentan.

Dialog Session With Tuan Haji Zainuddin

On September 3 2007, a conference with Kota Tinggi District Officer was held to answer questions range from tourism to other topics that were investigated by other groups. Have been in Kota Tinggi for 4 years, Tuan Haji Zainuddin Bin Zainal Abidin is the district officer in charge in Kota Tinggi. According to Tuan Haji Zainuddin, south east of Kota Tinggi were badly flooded.

When flood hit Kota Tinggi, all tourism activity was cripple. This is because the main roads were cut down due to the heavy flow of flood. In February, restoration work is carried out to those places. There was press conference that is held to announce that all the places of interest had been restored. Numbers of tourist has risen after the completion of the restoration work. The tourism activity was 100% regain. Only Bazar Kota that was not fully restores. Many entrepreneur bankrupt after the second flood hit Kota Tinggi. They were not expecting a second flood would hit again. After the first flood hit Kota Tinggi, the entrepreneur ordered new stocks and when the new stocks arrived, the second flood hit again, this time it was more devastating. Because this, Bazar Kota still do not have many stores open to the public. The loss for them was so devastating until some of them were traumatise.

At the end, Tuan Haji Zainuddin concluded that tourism industry in Kota Tinggi was fully 100% restore and number of tourist has increase since early March 2007.

Respondent Gender

The percentage of respondent gender from the questionnaires.

Places To Stay In Kota Tinggi

Mayres Hotel Sdn. Bhd
8th Floor, Menara Kota, No 29,
Jalan Tun Habab, 81900 Kota Tinggi,
Johor.
www.mayres.com.my

Grand Waterlilies Hotel
40-42 Jalan Niaga 2,
81900 Kota Tinggi,
Johor
grand.waterlilies.hotel@gmail.com

Nasha Hotel
No 40 Jalan Tambatan,
81900 Kota Tinggi,
Johor.

Fireflies Sightseeing

This is the place where tourist get on boats for fireflies sight seeing. The cruise usually took 40 minutes and during the pitch black night. As seen in the fourth picture, the tourist are from Singapore. We don't get any pictures of fireflies that night because there were no lights at all. From our observation, there were no locals on board except our group.

Main attraction To Kota Tinggi

According to tourists, they choose fireflies sightseeing as the main attraction in Kota Tinggi. Meanwhile the locals preferred ancient site as the eye of attraction in Kota Tinggi. Some locals that we interviewed lived near to the historical site like Makam Laksamana Bentan and Makam Cik Siti Aminah which were located in Kampung Kelantan and Kampung Tembiuh. They said many tourists like to visit the ancient site. When asked the question to the local traders, they had given ancient site and fireflies sightseeing as the attraction of Kota Tinggi. From the observation, fireflies sightseeing attracted tourist from Singapore because of the non existence of fireflies in Singapore land. For locals, it was the ancient site which brings local tourist to Kota Tinggi, where Kota Tinggi was famous of its historic value.

The question:

In your opinion, what is the main attraction for you to come here? (For tourist)

In your opinion, what is the main attraction for tourist to come here? (For local people, and traders)

· Ancient sites

· Fireflies sightseeing

· Shopping

· Waterfalls

Contoh soalan :

Pada pendapat anda, apakah tarikan utama untuk anda dtg ke sini? (untuk pelancong)

Pada pendapat anda, apakah tarikan utama kepada pelancong untuk dtg ke sini? (untuk penduduk tempatan dan peniaga)

· Tempat- tempat bersejarah
· Aktiviti melihat kunang-kunang
· Membeli belah
· Air terjun

Dubai; A Superlative City

The emergence of Dubai struck the world in awe. From The Burj Al Arab hotel to Palm-Jumeirah Island, it captures the economical steady in just a few years. Dubai evolves around 300 years, unexpectedly from a small fishing village to modern and superlative city. Here we can trace urban development in Dubai, where this place was always changed until what we can see now. If we looked back in history, urban developing in Dubai prevents Qawassim pirates attack in the late 19th century. Dubai comes out as great city after its independence in 1971 from British empire.

A factor that involves in building a great city is depends at its economy status and development. All of the infrastructures and development are to attract foreign investors, where with great rise of currencies flowwill generate more development. The incoming investors from outside brings along more job vacancies. Migrant workers started to move toward the land where great job opportunities available in Dubai. Recent studies had shown Dubai’s population increase due to incoming migrant workers. Migrant workers are from professionals, engineers, and trader to construction site workers

Much more to view on how Dubai beautifully evolve into a standard modern city. But for a round up, basically it is more on to the economics side that bring out Dubai to the world scene.

Findings-Hotels around Kota Tinggi Town

Grand Waterlilies Hotel
Located in the center of town, Grand Waterlilies Hotel had so much to offer to its visitors. New to the scene of Kota Tinggi, Mr. Lim Cheng Fook, the owner Grand Waterlilies Hotel, welcomed us with pleasure to be interviewed. According to him, Grand Waterlilies Hotel was just operating for the first time 2 months after the tragic flood. All through the flood, he and his crew were preparing the hotel for the first time opening in December. The flood had brought a lot of damage to the hotel before its grand opening.

When asked about visitors to Kota Tinggi, Mr Lim cite that visitors were mainly locals and foreign. He added, Kota Tinggi was a popular place for Singaporean visitors because Kota Tinggi has a lot of attractive places to be visited.

Nasha Hotel
Started to operate since 1975, Nasha Hotel were the oldest hotel in Kota Tinggi town compared to the others. Developed by Chinese entrepreneur, it has been recognized by frequent travelers in Kota Tinggi District. Damages ranged from furniture until electrical appliances and the décor inside the Hotel. The loss estimated RM100, 000 and took about months to recover. At the time we done our interview, Mrs. Nasha told she suffer a lot of emotional stress due to destruction of the hotel.

At the end, Mrs Nasha and her husband said, they have to take preventive measures if another destructive flood hit on again.

Pilton Hotel
According to Pilton Hotel’s supervisor, Mohd Shah (30), this hotel opened since 10 years ago. For 2 weeks, the hotel closed due to flood. The hotel did not suffer any loss for the reason that the hotel is at the second floor. According to Mr. Shah, tourist always comes during school holidays and major celebrations. Majority of tourist that stayed at Pilton Hotel were Malaysian. After the flood events, no of tourist decrease, he said. Tourists mainly make tour to Fireflies sightseeing and to waterfall recreational park. Asked what had cause the flood, Mr. Shah said he did not know what really had cause such catastrophe, because he were not at Kota Tinggi during that time.

Mayres Hotel
Sham (real name were not known) is receptionist at Mayres Hotel. According to him, Mayres Hotel had opened to tourist in the end of 2004. This four star hotel always had visitors from Japan, Europe, China, and Singapore. Majority of visitors come to Mayres to tour around Kota Tinggi while others stayed for their business trip. The hotel offers fireflies packages for its visitor. No of tourist were high before the flood events compared to the after flood. This is because; many facilities damaged for instance car park, shopping complex (beside the hotel) bowling, and the café.

A Visit To Makam Laksamana Bentan

Interviewing Session

Day one in KOta Tinggi.

Interview with one of shop owner in Bazar Kota, Kota Tinggi.

The Findings - Makam Laksamana Bentan

The site was not govern by Kota Tinggi Government but was taken care by villagers and the community around the site. The tombs was not submerge by any flood because it was higher than the land surrounding the site ( Kg Kelantan was believe to be the fortress back then). When the second flood 2006/2007 hit Kg Kelantan, the Tombs was submerge until the iron gate that surround the tomb. Restoration work was done so quickly after flood has resided to secure this important piece of history of Kota Tinggi. The restoration work was done mainly by villagers and some helped from Tok Ketua( an Officer) from Kota Tinggi District. Finally after much time and energy, the tomb has return to normal state as it was before.

The Findings - Museum

There were drop in the visitor count early of 2007. In December 2006 there were 942 visitors while in the early 2007, January 163 visitors. The statistical that we have, shown in the mid of 2007 the visitors count bounce back up to 1464. Visitors mostly are local people (Malaysian), students and there were also some foreign visitors.

Miss Asniza bt Uda told(Curator Assistance), visitors come by to the Museum in December because it is the school holiday and at that time (early December) there were no flood events in Kota Tinggi. The Museum located on much higher land. When flood hit Kota Tinggi, The Musuem was not affected very much, but still, the car park and the the front of the Museum are submerged in flood. Fortunately there were no damage in the Museum and its precious historical things. The decreasing visitors is because the difficulties to get to the Museum during the Flood 2006/2007.
Since the flood happened about a year ago, the Museum has been back on its track now.

(Statistical courtesy of Kota Tinggi Museum)

Muzium Kota Tinggi
JKR 1858 (P), Jalan Desaru,
81600 Kota Tinggi,
Johor Darul Ta'zim