Malaysia still short of tourist target
Contributors are not employed, compensated or governed by TD, opinions and statements are from the contributor directly
Tourist arrivals to Malaysia for the year to October reached 18.15 million, the Business Times has reported. The figures leave the country still needing to attract 2.17 million tourists in both November and December to reach to annual target of 22.5 million visitors. Malaysia’s arrivals for the month of October reached just 1.82 million, the report said.
Indeed the highest monthly tourist arrival recorded so far in 2008 was only 1.96 million, back in June 2008. Tourists are classified as those visitors who stay for at least one night.
Despite the seemingly impossible task of meeting the annual target, Malaysia’s Tourism Ministry and its marketing arm, Tourism Malaysia, have reportedly said they will continue to work towards the goal.
Tourism Malaysia has also increased their target for 2009 to 22.96 million tourist arrivals – 2.04% increase from this year’s target. Tourism receipt targets for 2009 have been set at MYR53.9 billion (US$14.9 billion).
Reporting statistics published on the Tourism Malaysia website, October saw a staggering 70% year-on-year jump in Indonesian arrivals to 245,604. Arrivals from Malaysia’s three other immediate neighbours – Singapore, Thailand and Brunei - all declined, while the two main emerging markets of India and China grew by 40.7% and 39.8% respectively. The number of Japanese tourists increased 38.2% while the number of arrivals from the Philippines rose 38.8%, the report added.
Comments are closed.