By ARAB NEWS
The tourism industry in Malaysia currently ranks as the second foreign exchange earner. As far as the results go, promoting the tourism industry has been one of the country’s success stories. In celebrating Malaysia’s 53 years of nationhood, its tourism industry certainly deserves due recognition for its contributions to the nation in terms of income generation, infrastructure development and job creation.
Despite encountering various obstacles along the way, the tourism industry has remained resilient. It continues to be an important economic activity benefiting various business areas such as hospitality, transportation, retail trade, recreational and leisure facilities. Its resilience is largely attributed to the active participation of both the public and private sectors in undertaking vigorous promotion and marketing, diversifying target markets, as well as improving competitiveness of tourism products and services to sustain interest among visitors to Malaysia.
The Malaysian government recognizes the vital role of the tourism industry as a major contributor to its economy. Over the years, the tourism industry in Malaysia has grown significantly, both in terms of tourist arrivals and economic contribution.
From a mere 5.5 million tourist arrivals in 1998, contributing some RM8.5 billion ($2.7 billion) in tourism receipts, Malaysia successfully attracted 23.65 million tourists in 2009. READ MORE
Categories: Asia, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia
To continue to grow in tourism, the country has to maintain’s its commitment to multicultarlism and religious freedom and always restrain the right wing elements of hate and bigotry! The best restrain is education of the masses about the Islam’s emphasis on human rights, religious freedom and tolerance.
The Muslim Times can be a great resource in this regards!
Eid Mubarak to the whole Muslim world. Today for the first time I received an Eid rather than a Christmas present from my employees, after 5-10 years of working together. This in my mind creates a lot of hope for the common humanity of Homo sapiens and our global village!