Malaysia Airports Embarks on Its Public Awarenness Campaign Themed ‘pay It Forward’ to Educate Members of the Public on the Importance of Observing Proper Toilet Etiquete
SEPANG - Malaysia Airports aims to make a difference by championing toilet cleanliness through its public awareness campaign themed ‘Pay It Forward.’ The objective of the campaign is to educate the public on proper toilet etiquette and to encourage them to pay forward the kindness of ensuring a clean and hygienic environment for subsequent users. The campaign is also in line with the government’s call to create a civic-minded society as Malaysia forges ahead in its goal to become a fully developed nation.
The ‘Pay It Forward’ campaign was launched by YB Datuk Ab Aziz Kaprawi, the Deputy Minister of Transport Malaysia who said that the government is always supportive of such efforts. “In order to become a fully-developed nation, our people must also cultivate a first-world mentality. The responsible usage of public facilities is one example where this should be applied. I call for the support from the rakyat of Malaysia to fully embrace this campaign. It is part of our collective responsibility to ensure that Malaysia’s reputation as one of the world’s major tourist destinations should not be tarnished by the discourteous behaviour of its citizens,” he commented further.
Managing director of Malaysia Airports, Datuk Badlisham Ghazali who was also present at the event shared why the company had decided to champion this cause. “This is one of the initiatives we have taken to ensure a joyful experience for our airport users. As an airport operator, we have to play our role in uplifting the service standards at the airports that we manage. To this effect, we have taken several measures to enhance toilet condition and cleanliness such as increasing monitoring frequency, providing a convenient platform for user feedback and response by our operations team, and embarking on a major toilet refurbishment project.”
“However, as the custodian of Malaysia's main gateway into the country, we also have a role to play in rallying the nation to contribute towards ensuring a positive impression of Malaysia to our visitors. A country’s reputation in the eyes of the world depends on such public-spiritedness. Malaysia is already known for its warm hospitality and courtesy, it is important that we extend this courteousness to the usage of our public facilities. This is why we decided to champion this campaign,” he added further.
“Throughout 2017, KLIA has been fortunate to receive record number of passengers. As at November 2017, it registered a total of 53 million passenger traffic movements, 72% of which are international travellers. Let us think of others and pay it forward. Wouldn’t it be great if we, as Malaysians can help
form lasting impressions of a courteous nation to nearly 38 million people?” Datuk Badlisham ended his speech by calling for a positive change in the usage of public facilities.
The highlight of the event was the unveiling of the campaign’s series of television commercials that on the subject of good toilet etiquettes with the tagline, “Wouldn’t it be great to think of others? Pay it forward.” The television commercials will also be augmented with a series of print advertisements, and a new set of educational doodles on posters that will be placed in the toilet cubicles. This series of doodles is a continuation of the ones successfully implemented last year.
On top of this, as part of its corporate social responsibility efforts, the campaign activation activities also included conducting school visits to the airport where students are taught how to use public facilities in a responsible manner. This is done to ensure that the right mind set is inculcated from a very young age.
Other efforts by Malaysia Airports to improve toilet cleanliness include initiating a recognition programme based on good attendance, quick turn-around time and punctuality for individual cleaners in order to encourage excellent work performance. This is to further complement the collaboration that the company has with the Ministry of Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government in conducting cleanliness audits using the agency’s Toilet Maintenance Grading System. Based on the audit, toilet cleanliness in both terminals in KLIA has improved whereby about 86% of the toilets achieved a 4-star rating and above with 30% achieving 5-star as of November 2017.