Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong

Recently about few weeks back, when Miss Tinath gave me an assignment to create a blog or an online journal about entrepreneurs, I never knew or would least expected that this assignment would be so meaningful and beneficial to me. Since I started blogging, I look up for entrepreneurs that inspires and motivates me. I like to read about the lives of successful people. I like to read about how they succeeded through difficulties, their rags to richest stories and how they live. To my surprise most of them are very down to earth and compassionate. I like to catchup on the news of how they are doing now. I was happy that even some entrepreneurs in my country, Malaysia who has also succeded against all odds and they are my inspiration as well.

Today in this blog post, I’m going to share with you one of the leading entrepreneurs in Malaysia that I admired. He is the Malaysian typhoon billionaire, Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong.

In year 1994, Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong was first inspired and conceived the idea of building a hilltop resort when he was having a dinner in the Cameron Highland.He recognized this as an opportunity and had foreseen Malaysian future needs are a cool mountain holiday for relaxation and recreation.

Therefore he found a strategic place which is Gunung Ulu Kali a 1800 metre high mountain at a place called Genting Sempah. His idea of transforming a jungle hilltop to a tourist resort was doubt by many as they thought it was risky and foolish to invest so much money and time in developing but Lim Goh Tong believes in his dreams. For this project, he had dumped in all of his fortune and put aside all the negative comments from his friends and family. He uses and turns all the negative comments to motivate himself and put in his very best effort.

After getting approvals from the Federal and State government, Lim started to began his project. Among the problem faced were building an access road to the hilltop, water and electricities supply and sewerage system. Lim managed to build the access road in 3 years while it was estimated to be 15 years. He was helped by the Malaysian government, which subsidised the building of a road to the resort and awarded him a casino licence after Tunku Abdul Rahman, former Prime Minister of Malaysia visited Genting Highland and praise his effort in contributing towards the nation tourism industry.

In the next 30 years, Lim continued to develop and expand Genting Highlands to a developed tourist attraction town. Among the projects were the construction of more hotels such as The First World Hotel, Resort Hotel, Highland Hotel and Theme Park Hotel, indoor and outdoor theme parks and a convention centre. Along with its casino, Genting Highlands attract more than 15 million visitors a year. 

As of now, Genting Highlands is one of the most successful Casino result in the world and is one of the primary tourist attraction in Malaysia. What I truly learn from his walk of life is to keep on working hard and never give up.