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Malaysia expects drop in tourists from Bangladesh

Star Business Report
Malaysia expects a 38 percent fall in the tourist flow from Bangladesh to 30,000 arrivals in 2009 as many may cut their travels plans in the global financial crisis.
The country has also slashed its global tourist arrival forecasts for the current year.
“We have revised our target in the wake of the global financial crisis. Our revised target is more realistic considering the situation," said Manoharan, director of Tourism Malaysia, at a press conference at Sonargaon Hotel in Dhaka yesterday.
The press conference was organised as part of Tourism Malaysia's marketing campaign to attract leisure travellers from Bangladesh.
Zulkefli Sharif, director of Tourism Malaysia for South Asia, West Africa and Africa Division, was also present at the programme. He also leads the sales mission, comprising 12 tour operators, one hotelier and two other tourism-related organisations.
Malaysia Tourism, the national agency for promoting the Southeast Asian country to tourists, set the target after the country received 49,000 Bangladeshi tourists in 2008. The majority of them were leisure travellers.
"The 2009 target for arrivals from Bangladesh is 30,000 tourists. Globally, we aim to achieve arrivals of 20 million by the end of the current year," said Zulkefli Sharif.
In 2008, Malaysia received about 22 million tourists, up 5 percent from a year ago.
Malaysia Tourism made a downward revision of expected tourist arrivals as the current global financial crisis darkened the prospect for international tourism.
The UN World Tourism Organisation has recently said global tourism could decline by up to 2 percent in 2009 amid the financial crisis as the Americas and Europe will be the most-affected regions.
Tourist arrivals worldwide rose 2 percent to 924 million in 2008 from a year ago, according to the UN agency.
The organisation however expects positive results for the Asia-Pacific region.
Malaysia Tourism however said it wants to boost travel demand through its campaign mainly in the regional market.
"In any crisis, only the regional market can survive," said Manoharan, referring to Malaysia's focus on domestic tourism during the financial market debacle in the mid-1990s in the Southeast Asian region.
"We know times are hard. But we are going to offer very attractive offers to attract tourists.”