FRANKFURT, Feb 9 (Bernama) -- Tourism Malaysia's office in Frankfurt was recently voted by a German travel and tourism magazine as the top Asian tourism office in Germany's financial capital, which has a concentration of foreign tourism offices promoting tourism traffic from Germany to other countries.
Although it was ranked the 8th leading tourism office on a worldwide basis, it shared this ranking with Italy.
Among Asian representations, it is ahead of even the Thai tourism office which has, traditionally, been aggressively courting German tourists to Thailand and taking the top Asian ranking in past surveys.
There are many Asian tourism promotion offices located in Frankfurt, including from China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Maldives, Nepal, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Taiwan.
Malaysia's top ranking amongst Asian tourism promotion offices emerged from the survey conducted by the tourism and travel magazine, 'Touristik Aktuell', which presented the results at its much-publicised Global Awards 2013. The results of the survey, conducted amongst 894 tour operators/travel agents, airlines and others in the autumn of 2013, were announced last week.
Maizan Ahmad, the director of Tourism Malaysia's Frankfurt office, told Bernama that she was delighted at the honour which was also a tribute to the "hard work and dedication of our staff in promoting tourism to Malaysia".
The Frankfurt office was voted in the best foreign tourism board category, receiving praise for the efficient and quick service provided to travel agents, tour operators, the public and others. "The seminars and workshops conducted by us, our e-learning programmes, fam tours arranged for the tour operators, our marketing campaigns, etc. were well appreciated.
"Malaysia is increasingly becoming popular amongst German tourists. Indeed, Malaysia is rated as the destination for this year which also happens to be Visit Malaysia Year 2014," Maizan said. She sees "good potential" for close cooperation with the German carrier Lufthansa which is introducing direct, non-stop flights to Kuala Lumpur and to Jakarta effective March 30.
"The five weekly Lufthansa flights to Kuala Lumpur will give us a total of 10 flights a week, including five a week by our national carrier MAS," Maizan said, confident that the additional service by Lufthansa would be a strong impetus for Germans and other tourists to visit Malaysia.
Meanwhile, it was estimated based on German data, that tourism traffic to Malaysia in 2013 from Germany grew by seven per cent over the previous year.
Maizan, whose jurisdiction covers seven other European countries in addition to Germany, plans to promote family tourism so that parents, along with their children, can experience the joy of vacations by bonding together.
She considers the Legoland theme park in Johor to be an ideal venue for family bonding and fun, while Germans are also attracted by Malaysia's natural assets such as the beaches, tropical forests and wildlife.
Tourism Malaysia's Frankfurt office hosted a special dinner at the Steigenberger Hof in Frankfurt to express its deep appreciation to its partners comprising tour operators, travel agents, airlines, etc. to help promote tourism to Malaysia.
The Frankfurt office is participating in the forthcoming International Tourism Bourse in Berlin from March 5 to 9 where Malaysia will be presented as a "convention and cultural partner".
-bernama.
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