JEDDAH, 30 May 2004 — Malaysia’s campaign to attract tourist dollars from the Middle East continues unabated.
The country’s visa policy for Middle Eastern nationals, for instance, is comparatively liberal, giving them three-month visitor’s visas on arrival, its Consul General Zulkifli ibn Yaacob said yesterday.
He was speaking at the Jeddah Marriott Hotel, which is hosting a Malaysian festival, organized by Tourism Malaysia in cooperation with Malaysia Airlines from June 2-13. Besides food, the festival will also feature handicrafts, traditional music, batik demonstrations and foot reflexology.
Three Malaysian chefs, led by Zek Abdul Rahman, are being flown in to prepare special delicacies. A ghazal group will present Arabic, Malay, Chinese and Hindi music, reflecting Saudi Arabia’s and Malaysia’s ethnic diversity.
The country is also encouraging frequent visitors to make use of a program called “Malaysia My Second Home”, which allows foreigners who meet certain criteria to stay in the country on a social visit pass with multiple entry visa, initially for five years but renewable.
The pass has attracted some takers from the West and from Southeast Asian countries, but Malaysia has its eyes increasingly on the Middle East — no surprise since the spend per Middle East tourist for an average stay of 13.7 nights is $900, as against $500 in the case of others.
Malaysia expects 50,000 tourists from the Kingdom and 100,000 others from the rest of the Middle East this year, according to Zalizam Zakaria of Tourism Malaysia.
Tourist arrivals dropped to 20,077 in 2003 from 45,007 in 2002 due to SARS and the Iraq war.
This was despite the fact that only two SARS cases were detected in the country in 2003, both of which had been “imported” from other countries, he said.
World tourist arrivals in Malaysia exceeded 10.5 million in 2003, down from 13.29 million in 2002 and 12.77 million in 2001. “This year’s target is to attract over 15 million tourists from the world over,” Zakaria said, but did not indicate how close to the target his country has come so far this year.
