KUALA LUMPUR: Tourism Malaysia is confident of achieving the target of getting 29.4 million tourist arrivals this year in view of the Malaysia Year of Festival 2015 despite the volatile economic condition.
Its deputy director-general (Promotion), Datuk Azizan Noordin said Tourism Malaysia is positive of the tourism outlook and on track to achieving the target, driven by various initiatives taken, including promotional and advertising blitz throughout the world.
“Last year, we targeted 28 million tourist arrivals and until October 2014, we managed to get 22.12 million tourist arrivals,” he told reporters at the launch of the International Islamic Trade, Business and Tourism Fair
2015 (i-Tradebiz 2015) here yesterday.
Azizan said there was a recovery of tourist arrivals from China after a lull following two air tragedies involving the Malaysia Airlines.
MAS flight MH370 bound for Beijing from Kuala Lumpur disappeared on March 8 while flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17.
Azizan said tourist arrivals from China dropped by 11.1 per cent between January and September 2014, but it rose in October 2014 by 5.2 per cent after the two air tragedies.
He said that the depreciation of ringgit is an advantage to foreign tourists as it add value to their money.
“With higher foreign currencies like euro, pound and yen, foreign tourists would find that prices of goods are cheaper than before in Kuala Lumpur, which was rated the world’s fourth best shopping haven.
“Since July last year, many airlines have been operating chartered flights weekly from China to Malaysia and this will encourage more tourist arrivals,” he said, adding that Malaysia Tourism is targeting more Chinese tourists during the Chinese New Year festival following the visa fee waiver announcement recently. — Bernama