MITE has met objective of promoting country, says Yen Yen
SERDANG, June 2 — The Malaysia International Tourism Exchange (MITE) 2012 has achieved its objective of promoting the country’s tourist attractions to outsiders, said Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ng Yen Yen.
She said Malaysia had all the attributes that made it an ideal holiday destination as well as a magnet for investors.
“This major event (MITE) has awakened the interest of investors, tourism and travel trade members whose nature of business involves marketing tourism services and building up of a good network of business contacts for the trade,” she said when closing the event here tonight.
The text of her speech was read out by Malaysia Convention and Exhibition Bureau chief executive officer Zulkefli Sharif.
Dr Ng said MITE had received the support of 370 Malaysian registered sellers and those from 11 other countries, as well as 115 buyers from 23 countries, of which 70 per cent were from ASEAN.
She noted that the event had definitely created smart partnerships among the invited buyers and sellers during a two-day business-to-business session.
Dr Ng said the local tourism industry was projected to record 36 million tourist arrivals with RM160 billion in tourism receipts by 2020.
“This would mean that we have to work harder to attract more tourists to help increase our tourism earnings from RM1 billion a week to RM3 billion a week in 2020,” she said.
The minister also announced that the next edition of MITE would be held from June 6 to 9 next year. — Bernama
