Tourism Malaysia To Agreesively Promote 'Homestay By Rail' Programme To Singaporeans

By Tengku Noor Shamsiah Tengku Abdullah SINGAPORE, Jan 31 (Bernama) -- Tourism Malaysia will aggressively promote the 'Homestay by Rail' programme as it is one of the most sought-after escapades for students and the senior citizens here. Its director for Singapore, Zalizam Zakaria, said the agency was working with Kereta Tanah Melayu Bhd (KTMB) to create attractive holiday packages. "On top of that, the launching of the new Blue Malayan Tiger train will further boost the needs and desire of travelling by train from JB Sentral (South Malaysia) to East Coast destinations," he told Bernama after a meeting with KTMB officials here Tuesday. The KTMB delegation was headed by its marketing manager, Noordin Kimi. Also present were six local travel agents involved in the 'Homestay by Rail' programme, namely, Raffles Holidays, Fascinating Holidays, AX Exotic, SJ Holidays, Azza Travel and Ruby Rashid. At the meeting, Zalizam informed KTMB that TM Malaysia (integrated solutions provider) would further promote the programme and was asked to get the latest homestays which involved a travelling time of within 45 minutes from any rail station. "This is to ensure the journey is not too taxing to the tourists," he said. He said the agency also informed KTMB to work hand in hand with the president of Homestay Malaysia, Sahariman Hamdan, to identify the homestays as a special booklet would be produced for distribution here for the new "Homestay by Rail" programme. He said Tourism Malaysia office here would assist Woodlands train station provide brochures, pamphlets and promotional digital video dics to the station master. KTMB also did a soft launch at Tourism Malaysia's office here and introduced the "KTMB i-Card" discount card for Singaporeans. The annual fee for the card is US$15.9 for Singaporean and permanent resident. -- BERNAMA