PUTRAJAYA: Deputy Prime Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi today chaired the Tourism Cabinet Committee meeting to deliberate on strategic measures to spur Malaysia's tourism sector.
The Tourism and Culture Ministry said the core objective of today's meeting was to discuss measures that would rev up the tourism industry especially in marketing and promotion to penetrate new markets, especially China, which had the world’s largest outbound market of 120 million tourists in 2015, as well as tourism promotions to high-potential markets such as India and Middle Eastern countries.
"The government will also focus on quick win measures for the MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions) segment which has big potential to get more high-spending tourists to Malaysia.
"The committee also discussed new creative and innovative ideas that could stimulate the nation's tourism sector to reach the 36 million target of tourist arrivals that generate revenue worth RM168 billion by 2020," the ministry said in a statement.
Also present at the meeting were Tourism and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz and his deputy Datuk Mas Ermieyati Samsudin, as well as deputy ministers from the Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government Ministry, Transport Ministry, Natural Resources and Environment Ministry, and Communication and Multimedia Ministry.
The ministry also said the tourism sector recorded positive growth of 3.5 per cent compared to the same period last year.
"Despite challenges in 2015, the tourism industry still manages to be the third main contributor to the gross national income (GNI) in the form of foreign exchange, contributing to the country's economy.
“The tourism industry remains resilient and started to show positive growth in the first six months of this year at 3.7 per cent, compared to the same period in 2015.
"Last year's tourist arrivals dropped from 27.4 million in 2014 to 25.7 million due to several incidents, including floods, regional travel advisories for the southeast coastal area of Sabah, and the impact of the MH370 and MH17 incidents," it added.