Dazzling developments

Selangor steps out of KL’s shadow by lighting up the tourism stage.

Arrivals Selangor is targeting some 3.6 million arrivals this year, up from last year’s 2.3 million. The statistics so far reflect an encouraging trend, with 1.5 million international arrivals from January to July, an increase of 104,299 or 7.5 per cent over the same period in 2009. Singapore arrivals were the highest at 419,218, followed by China at 373,931. Next were Thailand at 114,955, Indonesia at 98,236 and India at 69,582.

NTO The state tourism board, Tourism Selangor, will launch the second edition of its Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions guide in December. This edition features 35 venues, up from the 27 in the first run, which was released in February.“(The guide) offers organisers planning a business event in Selangor detailed information on convention centres and four- and five-star hotels with MICE facilities in the state,” said the board’s spokesperson. With a print run of 10,000 copies, the guides will be distributed to meeting planners and outbound agents at trade shows such as Asia-Pacific Incentives and Meetings Expo in Melbourne, ITB Berlin, Arabian Travel Market in Dubai and World Travel Market in London. The board will also give out the guide at consumer travel shows such as Indonesia Travel and Holiday Fair in Jakarta, Discovery World in Bangkok and World Travel Fair in Tokyo.

Hotels Premiere Hotel Klang opened on October 10 with 250 rooms. The business hotel features six versatile function rooms and a pillarless ballroom that can accommodate 1,500 pax for a cocktail reception and 880 pax for a banquet, while its grand ballroom can be divided into three separate rooms to accommodate meetings. Empire Hotel Subang, which opened in September with 198 rooms, is part of a complex featuring high-end shopping mall Empire Shopping Gallery. It has five meeting rooms and a pillarless ballroom that seats 340 pax in banquet-style and 450 pax in theatre-style.

Sepang welcomed Golden Palm Tree Resort & Spa in July, which enhanced the Sepang coastline with 399 luxuriously appointed sea villas that stretch out almost one kilometre into the sheltered waters of the Straits of Malacca.Attractions at the resort include non-motorised water sports activities such as cart sailing, wind surfing and canoeing.

Products i-City park in Shah Alam, also known as the city of digital lights, is an innovative “lightscape tourism” destination that features millions of colourful LED lights to make up a forest of “trees” and figurines shaped like peacocks, deer, horses and other creatures. This digital city features trendy shopping streets and a theme park to attract families. A 10-minute laser light show accompanied by music is held every night at 18.30 and 22.30. There are no entry fees for visitors to the park.

A new outdoor recreational activity being promoted by Tourism Selangor is river tubing, which entails floating downriver on an inflated lorry tube. Currently offered at Selangor River in Kuala Kubu Bharu, this new recreational sport is operated by event management companies such as Khersonese Expedition. A spokesperson from Khersonese said participants would experience an hour to 1.5 hours of fun traversing a tubing route that is 2.5km long with up to class 2 rapids, requiring basic paddling skills and slight manoeuvering to negotiate past some rough water and obstacles.

Access A new low-cost carrier terminal (LCCT) at Kuala Lumpur International Airport is scheduled for completion in April 2012. Located two kilometres from the main terminal building, the new terminal would be the largest LCCT in Asia with an initial handling capacity of 30 million passengers annually, which is double the passenger throughput of the current terminal. There will be 72 gates and a dual-mode runway that will allow a 25-minute turnaround time. Once the new LCCT is operational, the current one will be converted into a cargo terminal. Royal Jordanian Airlines, Oman Air and Mahan Air started flying into Kuala Lumpur this year. At press time, there were 58 foreign airlines servicing the Malaysian capital.
-TTG Asia.