The potential of the Indian tourist market has propelled Tourism Malaysia to execute an aggressive six-month long marketing and promotion campaigns in the country in the first half of this year. China and Thailand are counted among the other two major tourism suppliers to Malaysia, but the Middle East is also on Tourism Malaysia’s agenda.
Dato Sri Abtul Khani Daud, deputy director general, promotion, Tourism Malaysia, tells TTN, “For the last two years, we haven’t done a lot of campaigns in the Middle East, but the Middle East is within our top five markets in terms of tourist receipts, so we cannot neglect this market. We are gearing up to do more campaigns in the region this year.”
There is also an agents’ fam trip on the cards. “We know that the Middle East still uses travel agents, so we are definitely looking at educating the region’s travel trade. We did it for the China market, a digital educational platform for the travel trade, so we are looking at doing this for the Middle East Market too.”
The deputy director general tells us, “Lots of new things happening in the country. Most importantly, we are mapping out eco-tourism destinations in Malaysia. We are looking at the sustainable tourism programmes embedded with culture and heritage.”
A movie-inspired theme park, 20th Century Fox World, will open in Genting Highlands by the end of this year. The park will be 10 acres in size and will feature roughly 25 thrill rides and attractions based on films and franchises like Rio, Ice Age, Life of Pi, Night at the Museum, Planet of the Apes, Alien vs. Predator and Titanic.
Tourism Malaysia will get a bigger budget this year to support the Visit Malaysia Year 2020 campaign, which will see a string of promotional activities beginning this year.
* With inputs from Kim Thomson