The Cheapest City on Earth Kuala Lumpur now ranks as the world's best travel bargain -- we find out if it's worth the trip By STAN SESSER October 21, 2006; Page P5
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- From my hotel window I can see one of Asia's tallest buildings -- the dramatic Petronas Twin Towers. My room is spacious and has all the little touches, such as thick terry cloth robes, that you'd expect from a five-star hotel. Downstairs, near the gym, there is a spa with hot and cold whirlpool baths. The breakfast buffet features specialties from Malaysia, China and Japan. All of this, with taxes and service charge, at the Shangri-La Hotel, is costing me $107 a night. I haven't asked the manager for a discount, nor have I used airline miles to cover two-thirds of the cost. Rather, my room is so inexpensive because I've taken a trip to the world's cheapest major city. Every three years, Swiss banking giant UBS does a survey of prices around the world, including what a tourist would pay for a typical overnight package of an upscale hotel room, meals, transportation and theater outings. In this year's survey, released recently, Malaysia's capital, Kuala Lumpur, took the honors, outranking cities with a reputation for budget travel such as Mumbai and Prague. Kuala Lumpur's total UBS travel package costs $260 -- less than one-quarter of what the same package would go for in London ($1,180) or Tokyo ($1,090), the two most expensive cities for tourists. Of the four U.S. cities in the survey, the lowest package cost $720 in Los Angeles and the highest was $920 in New York. Convergence teaches us that with globalization, emerging economies grow so rapidly that the gap narrows between them and developed countries. This might be true for the standard of living and other measures, but it often doesn't apply to tourism prices. For instance, the $107 I paid for my Shangri-La hotel room, bought through Web site AsiaTravel.com, would have gotten me no more than the Salisbury YMCA in Hong Kong. In London, the cheapest hotel room I could find on the Internet cost $140, and that had the bathroom down the hall. The startling price differential doesn't end at hotel rooms. According to the UBS survey, a three-mile taxi ride in Kuala Lumpur would be just $1.60, compared with $11.60 in New York and $20.30 in London. Just a few decades ago, Malaysia was a sleepy country living modestly off commodities such as rubber and tin. Now, the economy is booming. The country is a world-class manufacturer and exporter of everything from auto parts to computer components. Much of the explanation lies with the pro-business policies of long-time Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who stepped down three years ago. He introduced tax incentives, spent lavishly on big-ticket infrastructure projects and encouraged multinational investors. Kuala Lumpur is modern and prosperous, and has numerous attractions for tourists. So, why is it so cheap? Yeah Kim Leng, chief economist of RAM Consultancy Services in Kuala Lumpur, ticks off two factors that help make it a budget destination (which also help counteract the converging tendencies of globalization). Heading the list is an undervalued currency: The ringgit is now valued around 3.7 to the dollar compared with 2.5 when the Asian financial crisis hit in 1997, so a tourist's dollar or euro buys a lot more. Second, the government subsidizes oil prices, which lowers the overall cost of doing business and helps keep taxi fares low. In the previous UBS survey, in 2003, Kuala Lumpur also proved a bargain for tourists, with its overnight city break cost of $230 ranking second-lowest to Karachi's $150 (London was the most expensive at $900, followed by Tokyo at $860). Daniel Kalt, a UBS economist, attributes Kuala Lumpur's relatively consistent performance during the years between the surveys primarily to Malaysia's ability to get a firm grip on inflation. He notes that over the three-year period, Malaysia's cumulative inflation was just 5.6%, compared with 12.6% in India. Yet, for most Americans, Kuala Lumpur and the rest of Malaysia remain off the beaten path. Last year, Singapore attracted more than twice as many American tourists as did all of Malaysia, 371,000 compared with 151,000. Thailand, which borders Malaysia to the north, attracted four times as many Americans, even though Malaysia can match many of Thailand's attractions, such as stretches of uncrowded beaches backed by rain forests and mountains. Mirza Mohamed Paiyab, director general of the government's Tourism Malaysia, says the difference is primarily because Bangkok and Singapore are large air-travel hubs, the first with many connections to Indochina and the second to Bali and Australia. Of course, like any major city, Kuala Lumpur has several drawbacks for tourists. The traffic jams are mind-boggling, making a taxi ride at rush hour an exercise in frustration. Not far from the glitzy shopping malls are impoverished neighborhoods with crumbling buildings -- a reminder that not everyone is sharing in Malaysia's success. But travelers who bypass Kuala Lumpur are missing some enticing features. There's a vibrancy that matches Bangkok, with bars and restaurants crowded late into the night. Restaurants in Kuala Lumpur spill out into the streets, and sidewalk food vendors are everywhere. A mix of ethnic Chinese, Malay and Indian residents makes for a variety of excellent cuisine choices. The city has also retained large swaths of colorful ethnic neighborhoods. The Lake Gardens district offers a bird park, botanical gardens and stately colonial-era mansions. The Islamic Arts Museum is world class. The area around the landmark Petronas Towers can keep shoppers busy for days. Tourists can also take day trips to the former colonial hill station of Bukit Fraser, known as a spot for bird watching, and to the historic seaport of Melaka. And then there are the prices, the accounts of which you'll impress your neighbors with as much as your photographs. I could sample the culinary delights of Kuala Lumpur from morning to night for the cost of a main course in London. Adly Rizal, the creator of a Kuala Lumpur restaurant Web site, Friedchillies.com, notes that "eating in K.L. for only three days is like going to Disneyland in the morning and having to leave by noon." Mr. Rizal took me to an outdoor fish restaurant behind the King's Palace called Gerai Seri Malaka, where three of us ordered two whole freshwater catfish, a whole mackerel, cuttlefish, a local river fish called terubuk and big chunks of stingray, their specialty. The bill definitely won't provoke a protest from the number crunchers who see my expense account. For far more fish than we could eat, as well as accompaniments, we paid $12. ----------------------------- Getting There: No American airline flies into Kuala Lumpur, but you can get there from any major hub in Asia. Kuala Lumpur is the headquarters of Air Asia, Asia's largest low-cost carrier, and flights to Kuala Lumpur on Air Asia from nearby cities such as Bangkok and Singapore can be as cheap as $60 one way. Where to Stay: The five-star Shangri-La Hotel is centrally located. My room, booked through Asiatravel.com1, cost $107 a night, including taxes, service charge and breakfast. The Carcosa Seri Negara is a luxury hotel in a converted mansion for about $290 a night (Web: www.carcosa.com.my2). Where to Eat: Cilantro offers exceptional French cooking with a Japanese touch; it's an average $20 for a main course (Tel: 011-603-2179-8000). At the other end of the price scale is one of Asia's greatest bargains, the Malay fish restaurant Gerai Seri Malaka, behind the King's Palace. Cost: about $12 for a bounteous lunch for three (Tel: 011-6019-289-2501). Requiring a drive to the suburbs, but worth every mile of it, is the Chinese seafood restaurant Fresh Unique Seafood 23 (Tel: 011-603-7960-2088); it is about $30 for dinner for two. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Introducing the Fusion Authority Quarterly Update. 80 pages of hard-hitting, up-to-date ColdFusion information by your peers, delivered to your door four times a year. http://www.fusionauthority.com/quarterly Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:218240 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
