By IANS,
New Delhi : India has successfully augmented its position as a pivotal tourism source market for Malaysia, with tourist arrivals from this country at a record high of 74,422 in May.
This translates into an overall growth of 32.5 percent as compared to May 2007, a Tourism Malaysia statement said Tuesday.
According to Tourism Malaysia Director Manoharan (one name), “the record level of tourism arrivals for May substantiates our consistent efforts to position Malaysia as a top-notch lifestyle destination offering travellers a unique experience and choices.
“Associating and hosting prestigious international events like the MTV Asia Awards, the Malaysia Mega Sale Carnival and other special initiatives like homestays has enabled us to attract different markets and segments.
“Through these initiatives we expect a 15 to 20 percent rise in traffic from June to September this year,” Manoharan added.
Between January and May, 234,245 Indians visited Malaysia, an increase of 25.6 over the corresponding period of the previous year, the statement said.
Malaysia has targeted 500,000 arrivals from India during 2008.
“Proceeding ahead with its destination promotion campaign ‘One Golden Celebration’, Malaysia today is keen to position beyond Kuala Lumpur getaways in the Indian market by featuring short-breaks through a combination of itineraries featuring cities like Langkawi, Penang, Pangkor, Tioman, Sabah and Sarawak along with Kuala Lumpur,” the statement said.
“The Destination Malaysia product offering in the Indian market would be tactically driven by product and price to augment the tourism yields not only from metros but also from the tier-II and tier-III cities of India, the potential source base,” the statement added.
Overall, close to 2 million tourists visited Malaysia in May 2008, an increase of 3.1 percent compared to the same month in 2007.
Cumulatively, 9 million tourist arrivals were recorded from January to May, an increase of 1.3 percent compared to 8.8 million during the corresponding period in 2007.