Malaysian Tourism Board on Bahrain visit to launch 'Visit Malaysia Year 2007' campaign for Middle East market

The effort underlines the importance Malaysia is attaching to the region as a potential source of tourists.

The delegation will also be participating in the Bahrain International Travel Expo currently underway. This runs in line with their 'promote Malaysia' strategy which sees the delegates participating in travel marts in each country they visit to promote Malaysia's tourism products. Prior to their Bahrain visit, the delegation visited Oman, Yemen and participated in the high-profile Arabian Travel Market (ATM) in the United Arab Emirates.

As part of their strategy, tourism presentations and media conferences will be held for the tourism and media community in each major city to be visited and the scheduled events will culminate in a dinner and cultural performance to showcase the diversity of Malaysia Truly Asia.

The Gulf countries sales mission comprises senior officers from Tourism Malaysia and state tourism boards, travel agents, hotel operators, tourism product operators and representatives from the Malaysian travel industry as well as the corporate sector. They will make courtesy visits to representatives of various tourism boards, airlines, tour agencies, and the media.
The tourism industry in Malaysia has been registering impressive growth over the last few years. The total number of tourist arrivals reached 16.4 million in 2005 with receipts estimated at a whopping USD 8.72 billion. The number of visitors from the Gulf region has risen phenomenally over the last few years, which explains Tourism Malaysia's enthusiasm to woo more visitors from here.

As far as this region is concerned, Malaysia registered 147,646 visitors from here during 2005, which is a 17.1 per cent increase compared to the same period the previous year.