Response from Tourism Malaysia

This is ther letter printed in the Star today in response to mine that was published a few days ago.

They may use WTO's figure and definition of tourists but do they take into account of the number of Singaporeans that live in JB but work in Singapore?

Let us take a very conservative figure of 20 thousand Singaporeans that does it 200 days in a year. The figure will already be 4 million. This does not include their family members from Singapore that come over to Malaysia to visit them but stay in their Malaysian house. There is always a reason to inflate figures. This is to show that the industry is booming when it actually is not. Ask any travel agent or Hotelier or even restauranteur for that matter.

The Tourism Ministry officials should be going to the ground to find out. They should not just sit in their enormous offices and collect figures.

Friday January 23, 2009
No reason to inflate tourism figures
IN response to “Minister has given an inflated figure” (The Star, Jan 15), I would like to confirm that based on the official, audited figures released by the Treasury, tourist arrivals generated a revenue of RM46.1bil in 2007.

The revenue is expected to be higher in 2008, based on the 5.1% increase in tourist arrivals from 20.97 million to 22.05 million.

I would like to further explain that the figures announced were based on the World Tourism Organisation’s definition of “tourists”, which describes them as “foreigners travelling to Malaysia for reasons other than following an activity remunerated from and within Malaysia and staying at least a night but not exceeding a year”.

The numbers do not include excursionists, which are defined as “foreigners coming into the country for less than 24 hours without an overnight stay”.

The figures announced by the Tourism Minister on Jan 12, which states that Singaporeans are the largest contributors to Malaysia’s tourist arrivals, do not include excursionists. If they had been included, the figure would reach 16 million.

I would like to clearly state that there is no reason for Tourism Malaysia to inflate the figures. All calculations that were made in determining the figures were based on a formula endorsed by the World Tourism Organisation and applied by countries across the globe.

AMIRRUDIN ABU,
Acting Director-General,
Tourism Malaysia.