M'SIA'S CHALLENGE IN ATTRACTING ASIAN TOURISTS AMIDST ECONOMIC DOWNTURN

By Manik Mehta

SINGAPORE, Oct 29 (Bernama) -- Despite growing competition from Asian
destinations, cost-conscious tourists seeking to get the best value for their
money, and depreciating value of the US dollar, Malaysia made a strong bid at
the ITB Asia 2009 in Singapore to attract Asian and other tourists.

The ITB Asia, an Asian edition of the ITB Berlin, the world's largest
tourism event, made its debut last year against the backdrop of the Asian
tourist's growing spending power.

While emphasising that Asia had become an important source of tourism
traffic even as many developed countries still continue to smart under the
devastation caused by the recession and the general economic downturn, Martin
Buck, the vice president of Messe Berlin, the organiser of the ITB Asia 2009,
spoke about the "great significance" of the Asean region.

"The Asean region is an important market for outbound traffic. Vietnam is an
upcoming destination as well as a market. So also is Thailand and Singapore,"
Buck said.

Asia's growing importance both as a destination and a source of traffic was
also reflected in the fact that some 70 percent of all hosted buyers at the ITB
Asia were from Asia, up from 56 percent in 2008, according to Buck.

Malaysian tour operators, travel agents, hoteliers and tourism agencies of a
number of Malaysian states made a strong bid to court Asian tourists.

Megat Shahrul Azman Abas, tourism manager of the Langkawi Development
Authority, said that given Langkawi economy's "total dependence" on tourism, the
island was interested to court tourists not only from its traditional markets in
Europe and Australia but also from Singapore, Thailand and other Asian
countries.

Megat Shahrul Azman confirmed that he had received "lots of enquiries" from
tour operators from India. "Langkawi as a tourism destination should be,
particularly, interesting for Indian couples wanting to spend their honeymoon on
the island," he said in an interview with Bernama.

He cited the case of a mammoth wedding which Langkawi had organised for an
Indian couple from Mumbai and brought in an entire wedding party to Langkawi.

"The money spent on food, drinks, wedding arrangements and other items
amounted to RM3 million (about US$882,352) That benefited many segments of the
economy. The wedding guests stayed at the Taj Rebala and Westing hotels," he
said.

Angelina C. Fernandez, head of marketing and communications of Firefly Sdn
Bhd, a subsidiary airline of Malaysia Airlines, highlighted the fact
that the airline was participating for the first time at the Singapore show
because it would get "visibility" at the event.

She pointed out that Firefly, which was established in 2007, had meanwhile
acquired a total of seven aircraft of the ATR 72-500 type. "Our airline is
ideally suited for flying to destinations where the wide-bodied aircraft do not
fly," she said.

She said that she had received "many enquiries" from agents in South Africa,
Germany, India and Hungary. "These agents are looking for point-to-point
business as they were unable to do so in the past."

Firefly, according to Fernandez, benefited from the economic downturn
"because our fares are very competitive" for the cost-conscious travellers.

A key expression of confidence in Malaysia as a destination was provided by
a spokesperson of Carlson Hotels Worldwide which is setting up two properties in
Kuala Lumpur.

Xerxes Meher Homji, the Singapore-based executive vice president/CDO
(Asia/Pacific) of Carlson Hotels Worldwide, said two hotels belonging to
the Carlson stable would be set up near the Petronas towers in Kuala Lumpur.

"Construction work on the hotels will start early next year and the hotels
are expected to be completed in three years," Homji told Bernama.

Jill Henry, CEO of the Sarawak Convention Board, was promoting her state as
a convention centre. She stated that Sarawak is the "first of all Malaysian
states to start a convention board which is autonomous from the tourism board".

"The convention activities in the East Malaysia state of Sarawak are,
generally, linked with nature as the background. This is a refreshing approach
for many customers in the convention business," Henry said.

Besides the new Kuching convention centre, the state also has additional
convention capacity provided by two new hotels Sheraton and Pullman. "This gives
us a total capacity of 15,000 for the convention business," she said.

She said that the ITB Asia served her as a "learning ground" where she was
able to make contacts with the intermediaries and learn more about the
distribution channels.

Juggling with figures, Zalizam Zakaria, the director of Tourism Malaysia in
Singapore, expressed "satisfaction" with the flow of traffic from Singapore to
Malaysia.

"Traffic from Singapore from January to August 2009 was good,totalling
nearly 8.3 million, a 13.4 percent growth over the year-early period," Zalizam
said.

He was confident that the target of 11 million arrivals from Singapore for
the entire year 2009 would be reached, despite the economic downturn.

Zalizam is trying to encourage Singaporeans to visit other non-traditional
destinations in Malaysia.
-- BERNAMA