Segambut MP Lim Lip Eng wants the Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (Matta) to conduct a study so that it will have statistics to back up its claim that Kuala Lumpur is one of the safest cities to live in.

Matta president Hamzah Rahmat made the claim yesterday in refuting Bert van Walbeek, managing director of The Winning Edge, a speaker at the recent Global Tourism Cities Conference 2016, who said four cities in Malaysia are among the most dangerous cities in Asia.

Quoting travel website worldatlas.com, van Walbeek named the cities as Kuala Lumpur (second), Petaling Jaya (third), Klang (fifth), and Johor Baru (10th).

Worldatlas.com describes Kuala Lumpur as a city that has “high crime rates”, including snatch theft, pickpocketing and serious crimes such as murder, rape and robbery.

Hamzah (photo) contended instead that “Kuala Lumpur is one of the most popular and safest cities", citing "common knowledge and word of mouth" as factors that will see an expected 12 million foreign tourists visiting the city this year.

The Matta president sniped that the website ranking the most dangerous cities in Asia was only based on input by visitors to the website and software to crunch numbers.

“It was not produced from official statistics or comprehensive studies,” he said in a statement.

Lim noted that Hamzah did not provide any statistics or comprehensive study to back up his claim.

"Who is telling the truth? Is Kuala Lumpur truly a city that is safe to live in and as a tourist destination? As an MP for a Kuala Lumpur constituency, it is my responsibility to find out," he said.

'No supporting evidence from Matta'

Lim argued that just as the Matta president rejected the worldatlas.com finding as it is not backed by statistics, he finds is difficult to accept Hamzah's claim as well since there is no supporting evidence.

The Segambut MP said van Walbeek at least mentioned worldatlas.com as a source while Hamzah had none at all.

"As the commercial body responsible for the tourism industry, I think that it is necessary for Matta and its members to get professional feedback by conducting a study, on at least 1,000 city dwellers and tourists, as to whether they feel safe or unsafe living in Kuala Lumpur.

"With the feedback, whether it is good or bad, Matta can convince the authorities, including the police, the mayor and even the tourism minister, about the measures needed to uplift the image and security of the city, to realise the estimated 12 million foreign tourists expected this year," Lim said.

He said that with the fall of the ringgit, plummeting oil prices and burgeoning 1MDB debts, which may see the rakyat footing the bills, income from the tourism sector would be crucial to the country's economic health and reminded Matta that it has a major role to play in this.