He said the industry provided employment to 24,000 workers or 16% of the workforce in the service sector.
Opening the RM68mil Holiday Inn Melaka in Banda Hilir recently, Mohd Ali said the tourism industry contributed RM2.5bil last year and this was forecast to increase to RM3bil due to the Visit Malaysia 2007 campaign.
“The state has spent several million ringgit on infrastructure and promotions for tourism,” he said, adding that the state received RM40mil to build tourism products under the Ninth Malaysia Plan.
Mohd Ali said the state was committed to support the tourism industry and urged the hotel sector to work hard to attract tourists.
“We hope the hoteliers will help in achieving the target of eight million tourists,” he said.
He said the state had received 3.071 million tourists in the first seven months of this year, with 2.38 million or 77.5% being domestic tourists and the remaining 690,139 or 22.5% foreign tourists.
Mohd Ali said there was an increase of 183,991 people or 8.4% of domestic tourists and an increase of 84,668 or 14% of foreign tourists compared to the same period last year.
He said that Chinese tourists were the biggest with 17,294 followed by Singaporens (15,031), Indonesian (13,023), Vietnamese (5,241) and Indian (3,921).
Source : STAR
[tags : malaysiahotelnews hotels malaysia resorts news travel tourism travel vmy2007]
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