The Melaka government is appealing to all hotel operators in the state to comply with the gazetting of the five percent heritage charge imposed on tourists spending the night in the historical state effective last Sept 1.

Chief Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Ali Rustam said the charge imposed would be borne by the tourists and not the hotel operators.

"I appeal to them to give an opportunity to the state government by imposing the charge because I know there are some hotels that are not imposing the charge," he said when approached by reporters, here Wednesday.

He said this when asked to comment on the report that three hotel associations in the state would not impose the heritage charge because it gave a negative impact as a whole to the Melaka tourism sector, besides being burdensome.

The three associations, namely the Malaysian Association of Hotels (MAH), Malaysian Budget Hotels Association (MBHA), and the Malaysian Association of Hotel Owners (MAHO) claimed that the implementation of the charge was unreasonable.

"A charge of RM5 out of RM100 for each room is not a big burden because we know that the tourists spend RM40 each to enjoy barbecued fish and RM10 to climb the Taming Sari Tower...there is no problem for them to pay for this," he said.

Mohd Ali said no action would be taken against hotels which refused to impose the charge at the moment and the local authorities would be asked to hold negotiations with them on the matter.

He said the move by the state government to impose the heritage charge was not to burden the tourists but to meet the cost of infrastructure facilities to provide more comfort to them.

The heritage charge is imposed on tourists staying at hotels and chalets in Melaka which has a total of 11,067 rooms from the 193 premises.-Bernama