Malaysia Hogs Limelight At Stuttgart's CMT Consumer Travel Show With 'Partner Country' Status

By Manik Mehta STUTTGART, Jan 16 (Bernama) -- Malaysia, presenting itself as an "attractive tourism destination", is hogging the limelight as a "partner country" at the ongoing CMT Consumer Travel Fair here from Saturday to Jan 22. At the opening ceremony Saturday, the Malaysian pavilion was visited by the mayor of Stuttgart, accompanied by the chairman of Messe Stuttgart, the fair organiser, and other high-ranking German officials. The Malaysian ambassador to Germany, Ibrahim Abdullah, came down from Berlin to Stuttgart to lend his support to the Malaysian presentation. The Malaysian delegation was led by Normasila Musa, Tourism Malaysia's director for international promotion department for the United States, Europe and Oceania, while the director of Tourism Malaysia Frankfurt office, Syed Yahya Syed Othman, was the "point man" for Malaysia's participation. Despite the eurozone debt crisis in Europe, which has led to the euro's depreciation against most world currencies and also made an average European traveller to tighten his or her belt, Malaysia recorded 1,147,992 arrivals from Europe in 2010. Travellers from Germany to Malaysia posted a two per cent growth, with 130,896 arrivals in 2010. However, Germans' arrivals in the first half of last year (until June) fell to 60,347 visitors, down 5.3 per cent than in 2010, with 63,778 German visitors recorded. Tourism's significance for the Malaysian economy can be gauged from the fact that tourism sector yielded earnings of some RM56.5 billion in 2010. Indeed, tourism has emerged as the second biggest source of foreign exchange earnings after manufacturing exports. Making a strong pitch for Malaysia as a tourist destination, Ibrahim pointed out to the "rich cultural and racial diversity" Malaysia boasts of. Kuala Lumpur was recently selected at the World Travel Awards as Asia's leading destination of 2011. "Germany continues to be of great significance for Malaysia; we are planning a number of strategic and tactical campaigns for 2012. One of the initiatives is to participate in consumer trade fairs such as the CMT in order to directly sell Malaysia to consumers. "Our main thrust in the German market is to offer themes such as nature, eco-tourism, cultural and sustainable tourism. We are keen particularly to increase the number of tourists in the luxury segment, and address travellers with high income and high travel budget as well as travellers over 50 years," Ibrahim told BERNAMA. He also cited salient highlights of Malaysia's tourism sector such as the many interesting events for foreign tourists and the growing number of international hotels. However, German tourists and other Western tourists have been lamenting of the low number of direct flights to and from Malaysia. Malaysia's national carrier, Malaysia Airlines (MAS), has been criticised in many countries for what was described as "penny wise pound foolish" policy for not having adequate flights to popular destinations but continuing flights to low-yielding destinations. Consequently, German travellers are taking flights by Etihad, Emirates or Qatar Airways but this entails waiting time at the airport hub in the country of origin of each of these airlines. The connectivity problem is also a major obstacle in the way of traffic from the United States to Malaysia ever since MAS discontinued its flights from Kuala Lumpur to Newark and New Jersey on the east coast nearly four years ago. Thus, there is no direct link, a fact that dissuades many potential travellers. While there is no doubt that Malaysia offers a wide range of tourist attractions from culture, nature to cuisines, the low frequency in direct flights from Frankfurt to Kuala Lumpur could impact German tourism traffic to Malaysia, considering that German travellers loathe the idea of changing planes and waiting for hours at third airports. Malaysia, which presented itself as a "partner country" along with Croatia, is holding a number of events at the CMT show. It will have a "Malaysia Evening" event tomorrow at the Commerzbank; the event will include a lecture by the Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board and culinary delights that will be prepared by a Malaysian chef. Also, a special cultural troupe flown in from Malaysia will perform colourful dances at the show. Because of the Germans' obsession with the sun, beaches and food, Malaysia's strategy has been to focus on Melaka, Penang and Langkawi, with its beautiful beach resorts and enchanting landscape. -- BERNAMA