Tourism Malaysia beckons Indian tourists

Even as the Indian travel buffs get busy planning their summer vacation for the current year, Tourism Malaysia has kicked off a campaign to attract tourists from all over the world in 2007, the country's fiftieth year of independence.

Tourism Malaysia's deputy director general Mirza Momammad Taiyab Beg, who is on a mission to India, told mediapersons that the country is gearing up to welcome over 20 million tourists from across the world during 2007, which is being celebrated as the "Visit Malaysia Year."

He added, "We are hoping to get at least 250,000 tourists from India in 2007."

Mirza has with him a large team of 37 business entities comprising tour operators, hotel and travel companies.

"The number of tourists visiting Malaysia is increasing steadily as the country got 9.7 million tourists in the year 1995 and the number has reached 13.6 million in 2005. This year, we estimate 16.4 million tourists, out of which 2 lakh will be Indians," he said.

Mirza said the number of Indian tourists from the non-metro areas are on a rise.

"Pune and surrounding areas of Nashik and Kolhapur, Sangli account for 15 per cent of the total inflow from India," he informed.

Elaborating on the plans, he said, this time around, we are encouraging the tourists to plan longer vacations in Malaysia so that they are able to visit some interesting places which are away from the big cities like Kuala Lumpur.

"A considerable portion of visitors to Kuala Lumpur are 'in-transit' category and we wish to convert them into long staying ones," Mirza stated.

According to him Malaysia has abundant accommodations to suit all budgets, with 173,000 hotel rooms in addition to service apartments, beach shacks and accommodation under 'home stay' programme.