DUBAI, 16 September 2007 — Malaysia is becoming a popular tourist destination for holidaymakers from UAE. Recent figures issued by the Malaysian Ministry of Tourism revealed that 9,500 tourists from UAE visited Malaysia during the first half of this year, indicating a 100 percent increase compared to the same period in the preceding year. A statistical report released by the Malaysian ministry also showed that over 10 million tourists spent their holidays in Malaysia generating $ 6.4 billion in revenue. Malaysian Minister of Tourism Adnan Mansour said in a statement that his country expects the number of tourists to cross 22 million mark by the end of this year. Malaysia has been aiming to attract more than 300,000 Arab tourists in 2007. The figure has been carefully calculated following a year-long tourism promotional campaign, which is the largest that the tourism promotion agency has organized in the past 20 years.
