Malaysia Hits 24.7 million tourists in 2011

Malaysia recorded overall growth in tourism last year as the positive effects of its luxury destination branding kicked in.

Tourist arrivals rose to 24,714,324 compared to 24,577,196 in 2010 while receipts climbed to RM58.3 billion compared to RM56.5 billion the previous year.

Minister of Tourism YB Dato’ Sri Dr. Ng Yen Yen said this was in line with the Malaysia Tourism Transformation Plan 2020 of achieving 36 million tourist arrivals and RM168 billion receipts by 2020.

“The branding of Malaysia as a luxury destination and our efforts to attract high yield tourists to Malaysia have been well-received and this has made a difference," she said.

Since 2010, the Ministry of Tourism had implemented various initiatives to draw high net-worth tourists to Malaysia with events like the 1Malaysia International Shoe Festival, 1Malaysia Contemporary Art Tourism Festival and the packaging of helicopter tours.

Other events included private sector collaboration on the "A Journey through Time" luxury watch exhibition and the CIMB Asia Pacific Classic Malaysia golf tournament sanctioned by PGA Tour which positioned Malaysia as a luxury tourism destination.

New Zealand recorded strong growth (23.0%) which benefited from the opening of a Tourism Malaysia office in Auckland last May.

YB Dato’ Sri Dr. Ng said that despite being hampered by global economic, political, social and natural challenges, "our tourism partners pulled through and I have no doubt that we would have been able to perform even better under different circumstances.”

“This year will continue to challenge us but we will proceed with efforts to promote Malaysia as one of the preferred holiday destinations in the region,” she said.

Source - etravelblackboardasia