Date: 19 November, 2012
Malaysia’s top 10 ranking the result of hard work: Yen Yen.
PETALING JAYA: Hard work by the Government and the people in
promoting Malaysia is the reason for it making into the top 10 of the world’s
most visited countries, said Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ng Yen Yen. Giving
her thumbs up to the country’s latest ranking in the United Nations World Trade
Organisation (UNWTO) Tourism Highlights 2012, Dr Ng said this was all down to
hard work.
“Our brand has been Malaysia Truly Asia and with that comes
a myriad of experiences that tourists can enjoy such as our multi-culturalism,
which many countries do not have. This is something that tourists love,” she
said here yesterday.
Malaysia has the distinction of being the only South-East
Asian country to make it into the world’s top 10 tourist destinations in the
UNWTO Tourism Highlights 2012. The report rated Malaysia ninth based on
international tourist arrivals, with 24.7million foreign tourists last year. In
2009, the country recorded 23.6 million tourist arrivals and the number
increased to 24.6 million the next year.
The report also ranked Malaysia 14th in terms of
international tourism receipts with US$18.3bil (RM56.3bil) last year. In 2009
and 2010, Malaysia recorded US$15.8bil (RM48.6bil) and US$18.2bil (RM55.9bil)
respectively in tourism receipts.
Dr Ng said her ministry had promoted Malaysia as a diverse
attraction, offering world class experiences such as eco-tourism, shoe and art
festivals, shopping and fun for the families. While Chinese and Middle Eastern
tourists like shopping, she pointed out that Russian tourists like beaches.
The Government, she added, had also given funding to light
up the Bukit Bintang shopping precinct and build walkways. Under MICE, she said
some 2,000 executives from a big Japanese cosmetic company were due to have
their meeting in February.
The ministry, added Dr Ng, also had an agreement with the
Bank of China to woo their premium customers to take up the Malaysia My Second
Home programme.
Acknowledging challenges such as better connectivity, Dr Ng
said they were working hard to overcome this, adding that the ministry was
aiming to attract some 36 million visitors, who would bring in RM168bil in
receipts by 2020.
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