More Tourist Arrivals This Year Up To July - Nazri

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 3 (Bernama) -- Malaysia registered 16.1 million tourist arrivals between January and July this year, an increase of 9.7 per cent over the corresponding period last year, the Dewan Rakyat was told today.

Tourism and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz said there was a decrease in the number of tourist arrivals from China and Taiwan which he attributed to the tragedy of the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.

Many of the 227 passengers on Flight MH370, which went missing while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, were Chinese nationals.

"The number of tourist arrivals from China (between January and July) was 997,370, a drop of 11.8 per cent, and the number from Taiwan was 116,962, a drop of 2.9 per cent," Mohamed Nazri said when replying to Dr Mansor Abd Rahman (BN-Sik) during question time.

Mansor had wanted to know the number of tourist arrivals following the MH370 and MH17 incidents. Flight MH17 crashed, after it was apparently shot, in eastern Ukraine on July 17 as it was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur with 283 passengers and 15 crew on board.

Mohamed Nazri said that besides China and Taiwan, tourists came to Malaysia from the 12 major markets, including Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Brunei Darussalam, the Philippines and Vietnam.

"The total revenue from tourism between January and June this year was RM35.3 billion, an increase of 13.2 per cent," he said.

Mohammed Nazri said Malaysia was on track to achieve the targeted 28 million tourist arrivals in conjunction with Visit Malaysia Year 2014.
-bernama.