Shopping is second biggest share of tourism spending after accommodation, says Nazri

Sale season starts: Nazri launching the campaign in Kuala Lumpur. Looking on are (from left) MasterCard Worldwide country head for Malaysia and Brunei Safdar Khan, British High Commission Kuala Lumpur director of trade and investment Tony Collingridge and Tourism Malaysia deputy director-general Datuk Azizan Noordin. — Bernama 

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s intense sale campaigns have helped to bring tourists into the country, the Tourism Ministry said. Minister Datuk Seri Nazri Abdul Aziz said the number of tourist arrivals last year grew 7.6% during the country’s sale campaigns from 2011.

“Arrivals during three sale periods in 2012 increased between 1% and 7.6% over the corresponding periods in 2011,” he said during the 1Malaysia Year-End Sale (1MYES) launch yesterday.

He said last year, tourist arrivals reached 25.03 million people, who spent a total of RM60.6bil. Of this amount, RM18.56bil was recorded under shopping expenditure, which is 30.7% of all tourists’ spending. He said this was a 5.7% increase from 2011, which recorded about RM17.5bil.

Shopping, he said, made up the second biggest share of tourism spending in the country, just after accommodation.

Nazri said the 1Malaysia Year-End Sale, which will be on until Jan 5 next year, will see discount offers from 30% to 70% from more than 2,000 retailers this year. The sale is also a prelude to the Visit Malaysia Year 2014 campaign.

The launch was also attended by up to 221 international travel agents and media personnel from 23 countries. They were here under Tourism Malaysia’s Mega Familiarisation Programme, which will see them going on tours to selected destinations around the country.

-thestar online.