Business tourism to prosper in Malaysia

Speaking at Malaysia International Tourism Exchange (MITE 2012), Malaysian Prime Minister YAB Dato’s Sri Mohd Najib Bin Tun Haji Abdul Raza said the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) had just announced that Malaysia was in the top 10 of the world’s most visited countries.
“This is a positive indicator of the strength of Malaysia in this industry and the challenge now is how to make it better going forward,” he said.

In 2011, Malaysia had 24.7 million tourists and contributed RM58.3 billion in tourism revenue. The country’s receipts of RM1 billion per week ranks it at 14th place, globally, in terms of tourist’s receipts. The tourism industry is the seventh largest contributor to the Malaysia economy with a Gross National Income (GNI) total of RM37.4 billion in 2011.

“Recognising that we have a strong global competitive position, we placed tourism as one of the National Key Economic Areas so as to enhance the sector’s contribution to the national economy,” said the prime minister.

By 2020, the tourism industry is projected to record 36 million tourists with a contribution of RM160 billion to the national GNI. With an additional RM39 billion in GNI expected from business opportunities, baseline growth and multipliers, the total GNI contribution in 2020 is projected to be RM103.6 billion with a projection of 36 million tourist arrivals and a very big part of this is the business tourism segment.

YB Dato’ Sri Dr Ng Yen Yen, Malaysia’s Minister of Tourism, said tourism was one of the fastest growing sectors of the global economy.

To propel Malaysia towards becoming a high-income developed nation, the government has initiated the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP), a comprehensive effort that will transform Malaysia into a high-income nation by 2020.

In the ETP Roadmap, the business tourism industry was listed as one of the Entry Point Projects (EPP) to establish Malaysia as a leading business tourism destination.

The country targets to grow business tourism arrivals from 5 to 8 per cent of the overall tourist arrivals, which translates to an increase from 1.2 million (2009) to 2.9 million by year 2020 and to position the country as one of top five destinations in Asia-Pacific for international meetings.

Tourism’s impact on livelihoods of many Malaysians cannot be underestimated.
Accordingly, there is a large work force engaged in sectors contributing either directly or indirectly towards our tourism industry. Tourism spans a range of activities. It is an agglomeration of related but separate, crosscutting services - transport, lodging, food services, recreation, retail and attractions. All these services are assembled either individually by the traveler or commercially by a network of wholesale and retail services like tour operations, airline’s global distribution systems, and travel agents, into a “tourism package”.

“Without creative intermediaries such as tour operators, travel agencies and marketing professional to construct innovative packages, tourism is likely to be a shallow industry. Tourism requires the efficient functioning of various components working in unison. An efficient and competitive tourism sector will ultimately translate into economy-wide improvements especially with the inflow of private sector investments meant to tap into a lucrative and burgeoning market,” said the prime minister.

“Hence, a more concerted effort by all parties concerned is needed, and this will serve to complement the government’s own initiatives to promote Malaysia as a tourist destination. For existing players, a central platform will give a clearer direction for developing strategies to remain competitive and to meet various challenges posed by the advent of globalisation. By working together, local industry players may be able to increase research and development content of their products in order to add higher value,” he added.

Malaysia is now among the most competitive countries in the world and the World Bank in its “Doing Business 2012” report acknowledged Malaysia as the 18th easiest country to start or run a business, ahead of developed countries like Germany, Japan, Taiwan and France.