Today Tropical Spice Garden mourns the loss of a great mover and shaker of Penang’s tourism – Eddy Low Lean Sing. Having walked hand in hand with tourism for more than 20 years and rode the waves of multiple booms and slumps, Eddy was no stranger to the idiosyncracies and difficulties of the tourism trade.

Eddy had foresight few had – dechiphering economic moods, hunches on tourism trends and the uncanny ability of preparing for the worst. He would often advise his tourism committee to tighten our belts to ride over the economic downturns; think out of the box to develop new marketing ideas for foreboding seasons of difficulty and forge ‘smart partnerships’ with tourism players – that together we can ride it through and with success!

Eddy would most popularly be remembered as helming Penang’s most successful tourism attraction, Penang Butterfly Farm which he undertook for more than 10 years. In his retirement from this seat of power, he stayed on as a Senior Advisor until his passing on 11 November 2009.

However Eddy was also involved in numerous tourism associations including many government led initiatives, SKAL, ATAP (Association of Tourism Attractions) of which I served under his leadership as Treasurer. Perhaps fewer would be aware of his contributions and active invlovement in many temple associations of which I am sure he will be sorely missed.

ATAP's courtesy call on Mdm. Kee Phaik Cheen, Chairman PTAC (Eddy centre with tie)

I have learnt ever so recently that it was Eddy’s desire to one day take his vows as a monk but this was not to be.

And so, although Eddy did not always share a common eye on tourism issues there was a healthy respect and affection for each other between a tourism giant and veteran and myself as the new kid on the block. As he used to say – “we’ll agree to disagree, Kat” Eddy took as much as he gave and for that I have a lot of respect for him. He held his ground and was not easily perturbed.

And so Penang loses another son who struggled and fought many long hours and nights to see our beloved island be restored to glory which Eddy so avidly believed would happen.

We will miss you Eddy and we promise to do all we can for our blessed Penang, we call home.

R.I.P