Muhammad Bakhtiar Wan Chik

GEORGE TOWN, Oct 13  -- Individuals and industry players have a role to play in the effort to boost the local tourism industry and make Malaysia a destination of choice for tourists.

Deputy Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Muhammad Bakhtiar Wan Chik said the Visit Malaysia Year 2020 Campaign was a national mission which must get the participation of every Malaysian citizen.

“The government is confident that with the participation of the private sector, the target of 30 million tourists and tourism revenue of RM100 billion can be easily achieved,” he said at the launch of the Visit Malaysia 2020 Campaign, Penang level, here last night.

Muhammad Bakhtiar said he was optimistic about achieving this target and hoped that industry players and private individuals would ensure that the services they offered were of high quality.

“We must ensure that the services are top quality and include what tourists want, such as cleanliness and transportation, kindness, safety, and personal touch, which are important to tourists who will remember them and take back good memories of Malaysia,” he said.

He said taking the example of Penang, it has to look for the x-factor which makes the island different from the other states in Malaysia, thus drawing more tourists to the state.

He said the ministry welcomed anyone who wanted to use the logo and songs of the campaign for their events so as to increase public awareness of it.

Meanwhile, commenting on Budget  2020, Muhammad Bakhtiar said the ministry was happy with the allocation provided it by Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng.

"We will use the allocation to upgrade several tourist destinations, improve and build new infrastructure,” he said.

In the Budget, the ministry was allocated RM1.1 billion for Visit Malaysia Year 2020, and the government organising the Health Tourism Year 2020 as part of the programme.

  -- BERNAMA