By NNN-Bernama
Jeddah : Malaysian Tourism Minister Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor said here the number of tourist arrivals to Malaysia from Saudi Arabia may be smaller than that from other countries but it is still an important market for tourism industry players in Malaysia.
Tourists from Saudi Arabia and other West Asian countries were important to Malaysia because they stayed longer in the country and spent three times more than the other tourists, he told reporters last night.
Last year, Malaysia received 17.54 million tourists, 186,821 of them visitors from West Asia, and this resulted in total receipts of RM36.3 billion.
Tourist arrivals from Saudi Arabia to Malaysia showed an increase of 26.1 per cent to 67,679 in 2006, up from 53,682 in 2005.
Tengku Adnan said: “We have seen a lot of growth (in terms of tourist arrivals) here and we want to strengthen our position here. I’m here to listen to industry players on the problems they face in bringing their clients to Malaysia, as well as listen to the ideas put forward by them.”
He also said that Malaysia was interested in enticing not only the Saudis to Malaysia but also the expatriate community working here as well because Malaysia is a year-round and safe destination with a lot to offer, like varieties of food and cultural heritage due to its multicultural and multi-ethnic population.
Tengku Adnan said the Saudis should also take advantage of the availability of about 500 institutions of higher learning in the country, with some offering twinning programmes with universities from the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia.
Besides, it would cost less for parents in Saudi Arabia to send their children to do twinning programmes in Malaysia compared to sending them to the three countries and they would not face harassment in Malaysia just because they were Muslims and Arabs, unlike in the Western world, he said.
Tengku Adnan said the ministry wanted to see more cooperation from Malaysian inbound flight operators like Malaysia Airlines, Firefly and AirAsia to promote new local destinations like Kuantan, Kuala Terengganu and Kota Baharu by providing connecting flights to the flights from West Asia to Kuala Lumpur.
Besides working with airlines, he said, the ministry was also working with the tour operators in Saudi Arabia to promote new destinations in the East Coast of Malaysia instead of focusing on established destinations like Kuala Lumpur, Genting Highlands and Penang.