International Travel Expo 2010 was biggest ever

Many nations are amazed at Malaysia's achievements in tourism and are keen to learn from its experience in generating income and accelerating growth in the industry.

Sudan, for example, praised Malaysia for successfully maintaining positive growth in its tourism industry despite the sluggish global trend, especially in 2009.

"Sudan can learn a lot from Malaysia. I feel the government, the people and the private sector (in this country) are all working together in this field and this is a good thing," said its Minister of Tourism, Antiquities and Wildlife, Dr Ahmed Babiker Ahmed Nihar.

"I also think that public awareness on tourism here is so positive," he told reporters at the World Tourism Conference (WTC) 2010, here Monday.

Dr Ahmed Babiker would like to increase and supplement the current tourism promotions to help boost tourism between the two countries.

"Right now, there is only a small number of people from Sudan visiting Malaysia and vice versa. We would like to change this situation as both countries have many beautiful tourist attractions," he said.

Tourism Development and Crafts Minister of Chad, Mahamat Allahou Taher, invited Malaysian companies to invest and participate in developing Chad's tourism sector.

"We know that Malaysia is a great destination, from all the advertisements on television and the Internet. We certainly want to learn from this country's success in tourism.

"We want Malaysia to invest in our country's tourism sector, and relations between Chad and Malaysia strengthened so that we can send our people to Malaysia to be trained in the field," he said.

Meanwhile, Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ng Yen Yen at a press conference later said she had received much positive feedback from the participants of the conference including the tourism ministers.

"Both tourism ministers from Sudan and Chad have asked whether they could proceed with the plan to draw up a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on tourism with Malaysia.

"Laos is also very excited as they are doing their Visit Laos Year programme in 2012, and they have invited us to give them a helping hand. Meanwhile, Malaysia and Brunei are in the final stage of developing our religious tourism packages," she said.

Themed 'Tourism Success Stories and Rising Stars', the three-day conference is a platform for policy-makers and industry stakeholders to share experiences and discuss tourism issues.

About 500 delegates are attending the conference, among them tourism ministers from Brunei, Timor Leste, Gabon, Papua New Guinea, Nepal, Laos and Swaziland.

Sourced=ETN