More Bruneians visit Malaysia in 2012
| Azlan Othman |
MORE Bruneians visited Malaysia last year than the year before (2011) with tourist arrivals up by 1.5 per cent to 1,258,070 (2012) visitors compared to 1,239,404 (2011), as revealed by Tourism Malaysia this week.
In fact, Bruneians were the fifth highest number of visitors to the neighbouring country after Singaporeans, Indonesians, Chinese from China and Thais.
Malaysia posted an impressive overall tourism growth in 2012, capping off a string of tourism accolades that placed the nation in the global limelight.
Tourist arrivals rose to 25,032,708 compared to 24,714,324 in 2011, registering a growth of 1.3 pe rcent.
Meanwhile, receipts climbed to RM60.6 billion compared to RM58.3 billion the previous year, which was an increase of RM2.3 billion or 3.9 per cent.
“I am extremely happy that the tourism industry has consistently registered growth year after year. I believe this is largely due to the Government’s strong support in recognising tourism as an important economic driver as well as the concerted efforts of our trade and media partners to market and brand Malaysia as the most preferred tourist destination,” said Malaysian Minister of Tourism Dato’ Sri Dr Ng Yen Yen.
Among the tourism initiatives undertaken last year were the physical transformation of the Bukit Bintang-Kuala Lumpur City Centre to improve shopping experiences, the opening of several new tourist attractions including Asia’s first Legoland, as well as the hosting of several business and international events.
