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.

Mayres Hotel

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

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.

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

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

Meet the folks

Old folks telling stories about their lives before and after flood 2006/2007. Mind you that they still living under the fear of flood.
This was captured during our group interview with local resident in Kg Kelantan. The interview concerning tourism in that place; makam laksamana Bentan.

Day One

Location: UKM

Started early about 8am, all participants waiting for the bus. The anticipated UKM bus arrived about 30 minutes later, and participants got on board with their own bags and things. 3 busses were booked for this fieldtrip and it is enough for all; consist of 3rd year students (demography program) and 2cd year student (urbanization and city development program). After an hour, around 10am, the buses stopped at Seremban RNR. Every person is told to take something as breakfast as it is a long journey from Seremban to Kota Tinggi, Johor. Trip continues again with 4 hour ride to reach the destination.

Location: Kota Tinggi, Johor.
Participants arrived roughly at 2.00pm. After arriving, checks in into hotels; female participants stayed at Pilton Hotel whereas male participants stayed at Water Lilies Hotel. Subsequently, for those that interested to explore the town can do so that afternoon and for those who got nothing to do, can stay at their own room. My own group anticipated to carry out some exploration at the town, taking some view and some sight seeing around Kota Tinggi town. It wasn’t big town; from corner to another can be reached by just walking. Seeing a lot of shops that have been restore and bouce back from the flood 2006/2007, but there were also some that have closed down due to insufficient fund, or bankruptcy happened to some shop owner. We went to the firefiies area, where we obtain information about the operating hours and the fees. We also manage to hand out our questionnaire and doing some interview with shop owners in the region of Kota Tinggi. Around 7pm we stopped for prayers and continue after that. We had decided to take a trip of fireflies’ sight seeing. Just wanted to know about the site and how it operates and also what makes it the place to be visited by people. Luck was on our side when we met the boat owner, and had the chance interviewing him on the boat. We get to cruised along Johor River, and awe with the spectacular dancing of lights from bunch of fireflies. An hour ride is just enough for me to appreciate the nature. The day ended.

Tentatif Program

Sabtu (01/09/07)
2.00 p.m – melawat ke Makam Laksamana Bentan dan menjalankan soal selidik
6.00 p.m – melawat ke kawasan Bandar Kota Tinggi
8.00 p.m – melawat kawasan kunang-kunang.

Ahad (02/09/07)
9.00 a.m – melawat ke sekitar Bandar Kota Tinggi dan kawasan perniagaan tekstil
1.00 p.m – rehat dan solat
2.00 p.m – melawat ke kawasan hotel-hotel di sekitar bandar Kota Tinggi
4.30 p.m – rehat dan solat
5.00 p.m – riadah
7.00 p.m – rehat dan solat
8.00 p.m – penerusan kajian lapangan.
11.00 p.m – rehat

Isnin (03/09/07)
8.00 a.m – melawat ke Kota Tinggi
4.00 p.m – rombongan bertolak kembali ke UKM
8.00 p.m – tiba di UKM