Wildlife Tourism Next

After flowers, it’s time for Malaysia to showcase its exotic fauna to tourists.

Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor said tour agents in the country should explore other less conventional avenues, such as the country's diverse wildlife to bring in the tourists.

He added that Malaysia, being one of the 12 “mega diversity locations in the world”, had a large variety of birds which could appeal to those who enjoy bird watching.

Wooing Japanese: Tengku Adnan (right) and Japanese Ambassador to Malaysia Tadashi Imai showing the travel supplement for the Japanese market, that was launched at the PWTC yesterday.

He cited as example the bird watching club in England which had about 3mil members, many of whom travelled around the country looking out for different species of birds.

Tengku Adnan, who was speaking to reporters after giving away prizes for the Floral Fest photography competition here yesterday, said Tourism Malaysia managed to sell about 3,000 tour packages for the Floral Fest alone, particularly to travellers from Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and South Korea.

On the floral parade along the Persiaran Perdana – formerly known as the Boulevard – scheduled this Saturday, Tengku Adnan said: “We want to make Putrajaya’s floral parade the yearly Pasadena or the Rio Carnival of this region.”

He added that 18 floats were taking part in this year's parade. Sixteen were from the local federal and state agencies while the remaining two were KFC Holdings and Shangri-La Hotels.

At another function at the Putra World Trade Centre, Tengku Adnan said a special supplement on Visit Malaysia 2007 had been published in a leading Japanese newspaper to woo Japanese tourists.

“We are expecting 500,000 tourists from Japan this year. So far, we have spent nearly RM9.3mil on advertising and expect about RM10bil in returns.”

Source : STAR
[tags : malaysiahotelnews hotels malaysia resorts news travel tourism travel vmy2007]