Malaysia Tourism Industry - 2nd Highest Contributor

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

THE Malaysian tourism industry has developed and become the second highest contributor for the Malaysian economy.

"Despite the current global recession, last year, Malaysia recorded an increase of 5.1 per cent in tourist arrivals, from 20.97 million tourists in 2007 to 22.05 million in 2008," said Datuk Dr Ong Hong Peng, secretary-general of the Ministry of Tourism at Institut Karisma's convocation yesterday.

"There is an urgent need for more qualified and registered tourist guides. Currently we have a total of 4,837 active tourist guides in Malaysia and only 10.3 per cent are skilled in foreign languages," Ond said.

"The Ministry is strongly encouraging existing tourist guides to enrich themselves through greater command of foreign languages such as Dutch, German, Russian, French and Arabic. We are embarking on providing foreign language courses to address this need and encouraging more people to take up this career, including school-leavers and those unemployed."

Source : MalayMail

Malaysia Targets One Million Chinese Tourists This Year

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Tourism Malaysia is set to capitalise on this year's 35th anniversary of Sino-Malaysian relations as well as the ethnic ties between the peoples of both countries to draw more Chinese tourists to Malaysia.

The Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board has set a target of one million Chinese tourists for this year alone.

"We will launch attractive tour packages which encourage Chinese tour operators to bring newly-wed couples, diplomatic personnel, intellectuals and professionals to Malaysia," Malaysian Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Ng Yen Yen said at a meeting with Tourism Malaysia officers based in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan Sunday evening soon after arriving here on a five-day visit to promote tourism.

She said tourists coming under these packages would enjoy gifts and additional services on top of the attractive discounts.

"We will include wedding photo shoots, gifts and gala shows for mass wedding couples to make their honeymoon in Malaysia a most memorable one.

"Former Chinese ambassadors to Malaysia will be engaged to give talks and hold seminars in universities here to relate their sweet experience in Malaysia so as to attract fellow diplomatic personnel, intellectuals and professionals to visit Malaysia," she said.

Dr Ng said the Chinese websites of Tourism Malaysia would carry the stories and photographs of rich and successful Chinese Malaysians to arouse the interest of the Chinese here to visit Malaysia to find out more about the evolution of Chinese Malaysians.

She also said that Tourism Malaysia would introduce special packages for Chinese senior citizens and parents of Chinese students overseas to visit Malaysia.

The Tourism Ministry would also emphasise the "To Know Malaysia is to Love Malaysia" promotion to get tourists to revisit Malaysia, she said.

Ng is scheduled to have dialogue sessions with major tour operators in Beijing at the Westin Beijing Chaoyang Hotel Monday morning and a dinner with Beijing Tourism Administration officials in the evening.

She will head for Shanghai Tuesday morning and also visit Wuhan and Guangzhou city before returning to Kuala Lumpur Friday.

Source : Bernama

Absent ads blamed for fewer Arab arrivals

Monday, July 27, 2009

The number of Middle Eastern tourists visiting Malaysia this month and next could plunge by half based on initial data obtained from travel agencies.

Traditionally, more Arab tourists reach Malaysia in the third quarter alone than in the first half of the year.

They also spend three times more than the average tourist.

Based on the RM6,070 spending per person, a 50 per cent drop in arrivals could result in potential revenue loss of RM300 million for the country.

While the tourism industry had expected a decline in arrivals given the shorter summer prior to the fasting month of Ramadan, they did not expect the number to be halved.

Factors cited for the decline, apart from the global economic crisis and influenza A(H1N1), included the lack of advertisements in the Arab world this year.

In July-September last year, Middle East tourist arrivals fell 6.3 per cent to 108,665 from the comparable period in 2007.

Travel agents are bracing for worse this year.

Asia Overland Services Tour And Travels group managing director Anthony Wong said its inbound market from the Middle East had dropped 40-50 per cent.

"We used to bring in 18,000 to 22,000 in July and August. Now, we are not busy at all," he told Business Times.

"This time around, we have been told by our agents in the Middle East that there has been a lack of advertisements compared to previous years," Wong said.

World Express Tours group president Tunku Iskandar Tunku Abdullah said that business at his agency had fallen 70 per cent in terms of tourist arrivals as well as value.

"Currently, even forward booking is down due to the lack of advertisements in the Middle East," Tunku Iskandar said.

He said that agents in the Middle East had told him that there had been a significant drop in advertisements on Malaysia compared to previous years.

"They tell me that there is very little promotion that consumers can see compared to previously and to advertisements to other destinations like Thailand, Singapore and Australia."

Asia Experience Tours, touted as the largest agency for inbound travel from the Middle East, is expecting a more than 40 per cent drop in business in terms of tourist numbers and value.

Its chief executive officer Ngiam Foon described this year as a "disaster", citing the economic crisis, H1N1 outbreak and other, better, deals offered by regional competitors.

"This year, they are not coming in big numbers," he said.

Calls to the secretary-general of the Ministry of Tourism went unanswered.

It is understood that the advertisement and promotion budget alone for Middle East countries in 2007 and last year was around RM20 million.

In reality, the amount is far more when the cost of its officers' fees, mega familiarisation programme, agent incentives and contributions from airlines are taken into account.

Last week, the Minister of Tourism revised downwards the projection for tourist arrivals this year to 19 million from 20 million.

Source : Business Times

Tourist Arrivals Up Last Month Despite H1N1

Although the number Influenza A(H1N1) cases continued to rise in the country, tourist arrivals last month achieve an impressive 7.5 per cent growth compared with the 0.3 per cent drop in May.

Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ng Yen Yen said the number of tourist arrivals to Malaysia was 11.35 million last month, a 3.5 per cent increase from the 10.96 million for the corresponding period last year.

She believed that medical tourism was one sector that could bring great benefit to the country, with a projected contribution of RM540 million in 2010 with 625,000 medical tourists flowing into the country to get medical service.

This was possible for the fact that Malaysia offered a wide range of state-of-the-art private medical centres and an impressive array of sophisticated diagnostic, therapeutic and inpatient facilities.

"In addition, Malaysia is also the place to see the fusion of Eastern traditional healing methods blending with the modern sciences of the West," she said in her speech at the International Healthcare Conference and Exhibition 2009.

Her speech was delivered by the ministry's deputy secretary-general (Managment), Dr Junaida Lee Abdullah, who also launched "Patients Beyond Border" a book by Healthy Travel Media CEO and a reputable author in Medical Tourism Josef Woodman.

Dr Ng said Malaysia was also reported in the recent Deloitte Medical Tourism report 2008 to be the most preferred destination in East Asia for medical treatment.

She urged the private hospitals promoting medical tourism to work closely with tourism operators to capitalise on every opportunity available to promote Malaysia's natural and multi-cultural attractions.

On the book, she said it was the first comprehensive, easy-to-understand guide to medical tourism for Malaysia and was published with the collaboration and support of the Association of Private Hospitals Malaysia (APHM) and Tourism Malaysia.

Source : Bernama

Aussie Tourist Numbers To Malaysia On The Increase

February 21, 2009 13:52 PM

MELBOURNE, Feb 19 (Bernama) -- Malaysia has started the year with an impressive 47,228 Australian tourist arrivals in January, a 21.5 percent increase compared with the same period last year.

This follows the 33.3 percent jump in Australian arrivals in 2008 to 427,076 from the previous year.

Tourism Malaysia Sydney director Shahrin Mokhtar said, Australia remained among Malaysia's top 10 tourist generating markets.

"Our performance in this lucrative market is reflected in the double digit growth in tourist arrivals from Australia to Malaysia over the past year," Shahrin said.

"Australians recognise the excellent value for money they get from visiting Malaysia," he added.

Tourism Malaysia's newly-opened Melbourne office had much better Aussie tourist figures than out of Sydney.

Last December the Melbourne office handled more than 6,300 departures and Sydney around 4,800.

"We in Melbourne expect to do even better, when our sponsorship of the Carlton Football Club goes into full swing next month,'' Tourism Malaysia Melbourne director Putra Hilmy Elias said.

Carlton club executives and players who recently spent a few days in Penang are most impressed with Malaysia.

"The club's website features glowing reports of the recent Penang visit and club executives are excited about our sponsorship. We will keep in close touch with Carlton to facilitate tours to Malaysia,'' Putra said.

Tourism Malaysia Deputy Director General (Planning) Azizan Noordin who was here this week for the two-day Asia-Pacific Incentives and Meeting Expo (AIME) said he was pleased with the outstanding work from Tourism Malaysia officers and staff in Australia.

Azizan said a key objective would be increase the average length of stay by Australian travellers in Malaysia from 8.9 nights to 10 nights.

"We will also be introducing and promoting many smaller, unexplored areas around the country, especially on the east coast of Malaysia.These will appeal to many niche and soft adventure markets including fishing, sailing, homestays and eco-tourism," Azizan said.

-- BERNAMA

Malaysia –Truly the Best International Destination for 2008

Global Traveler, a prestigious US based businessMagazine, has named Malaysia the ‘Best International Tourism Destination of 2008’. It was Malaysia’s third straight win in the category.

Director of Tourism Malaysia Sydney, Mr Shahrin Mokhtar, says the series of awards Malaysia has received in 2008 has validated the country as one of the world’s most desirable destinations for 2009.

“Malaysia enjoyed a very healthy growth in travel numbers from Australia in 2008 with double digit growths for the most part of the year,” says Shahrin.

“Our latest figures show that 381,352 Australian travellers visited Malaysia between January - November 2008, which is an impressive 33.5% increase when compared to the same period in 2007.”

Australia remains as one of the top ten tourist-generating countries for Malaysia.

Global Traveler’s annual survey received responses from more than 31,000 readers, most of whom were frequent premium travelers with an average of 33 round-trip flights per year. This is the 5th year that they have conducted the survey.

Tourist arrivals buck trend

HANOI: Malaysia saw a 5.1 per cent increase in tourist arrivals last year despite the global economic challenges. Tourist arrivals numbered 22.052 million, compared with 20.972 million in 2007.

Attributing it to her ministry's intense promotional efforts, Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said said long-haul markets showed the highest percentage increase.

The number of tourists from Canada grew by 65.6 per cent, followed by those from the Netherlands (63.3 per cent), Russia (56 per cent), France (44.4 per cent), Norway (43.9 per cent ) and Germany (41.9 per cent).

Read the rest here.

MALAYSIA IS BEST INTERNATIONAL DESTINATION 2008

Malaysia was recognized as the Best International Tourism Destination of 2008 by Global Traveler magazine readers. It was Malaysia's third straight win, having won the title in the past two years.

Global Traveler's annual survey received responses from more than 31,000 readers of the magazine this year, most of whom were frequent premium travelers who averaged 33 round-trip flights per year. Through the survey, they determined the best of business and leisure holiday products in 55 categories.

Winners of the 2008 survey were featured in the December issue of Global Traveler magazine, while a cocktail reception to celebrate the winners will be held on 15 January 2009 at the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles.

Global Traveler is a US-based business travel publication that caters mainly to executive travelers in North America who appreciate business and luxury travel. This is the 5th year that they are conducting the survey.

For other media releases by Tourism Malaysia, please log on to www.tourism.gov.my.

19.99 MILLION TOURISTS TO MALAYSIA IN NOVEMBER 2008

Malaysia has recorded a total of 19,993,804 tourist arrivals from January to November 2008 compared to 19,086,800 tourist arrivals for the same period in 2007, representing an increase of 4.8%.

For the month of November 2008, tourist arrivals showed an increase of 4.6% with 1,845,645 tourists compared to 1,764,586 for the same period last year.

More details here.

1,839,235 TOURISTS IN AUGUST 2008

A total of 1,839,235 tourists visited Malaysia in August 2008, representing an increase of 12.0% compared to the same month in 2007.

Cumulatively, tourist arrivals recorded from January to August 2008 were 14,730,437 representing an increase of 4.9% compared to 14,047,276 for the same period in 2007.

Read the story here.