Road Show To Promote VMY 2014 In China Postponed

KUALA PILAH (Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia), April 1 (Bernama) -- The Ministry of Tourism and Culture has temporarily postponed its road show to promote the Visit Malaysia Year (VMY) 2014 in China following the Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370 tragedy. Its minister, Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz said the move demonstrated the government's sympathy over the tragedy. "If we were to proceed with the road show, it shows as though we do not care about the tragedy. So, we are postponing our road show to China. "Although we are temporarily postponing the VMY 2014 road show to China, we are shifting the marketing focus to other countries such as the Asean member countries, India, Middle East and Europe," he said at a media conference after making a working visit to the 'Ladang Alam Warisan', Seri Menanti, near here, Monday. He said the government understood the feelings of the Chinese nationals who had expressed their anger at the Malaysian government on this matter. "We have to accept this fact and certainly do not consider this as an insult by China against Malaysia. We are also sad and sympathise with the tragedy that had befallen their nationals. "We don't deny the fact that tourist arrivals from China had been affected by the MH370 tragedy," he said. On the number of tourist arrivals to this country so far, he said there had been an increase in January and February. "We will find ways of boosting tourist arrivals to this country. If we know that the number of tourists from China has dropped probably due to the MH370 tragedy, we will look for markets in other countries. So we have to work hard to attract tourists from countries other than China," Mohamed Nazri said. -- BERNAMA