Dr Ng said the decision by local airlines to scrap several flights from Europe and India, affects the country's credibility abroad in promoting itself as a tourism destination. “Re-routing of flights will also affect the tourism industry, not in its millions, but in billions.
“We hope those in the connectivity industry will look into this” said Dr Ng after launching the 1Malaysia Mega Sale Carnival 2012 at Sunway Pyramid here yesterday. “When you stop flights, it affects the work we did for the past two to three years, working with tour operators, the media and suddenly, there is no flight. We lose our credibility and our goodwill. This is a real issue,” she said.
Dr Ng said Malaysia had set targets under the Tourism Transformation Plan to achieve 36 million tourist arrivals and RM168bil receipts by the year 2020. She said tourist arrivals reached 24.7 million and total receipts were RM58bil last year. “We want to see tourists stay longer and spend more here. We want the whole range (of tourists), from backpackers to the high end.”
“But let me say this, 600,000 Russians visited Thailand in a year. Only 60,000 Russians came to Malaysia. Why? “Because there are so many direct flights to Bangkok. We have to improve our flight connectivity and link up to major, emerging markets,” she said.
Dr Ng said the Government has implemented various initiatives and incentives in making Malaysia a shopping paradise. Tourism Malaysia statistics showed that shopping accounted for RM17.5bil in 2011, an increase of 1.3% over RM16.2bil recorded in 2010.
-thestar online.
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