Tourism Minister Says RM500 Mil Budget is Tight, Wants Extra RM300 Mil to Boost Industry

It looks like our Tourism Ministry wants to do more to attract loads of tourists to visit Malaysia in the coming year!

According to Free Malaysia Today, the Ministry of Tourism and Culture is reportedly seeking another RM300 million from the government in efforts to improve the tourism industry in Malaysia. They also want to pay more attention to draw tourists from China and India.

Source: Today Online

“We hope that the government will give us the additional budget in order to do promotions, because Malaysia is among Asean’s touristic countries. Compared to Thailand and Vietnam, they have bigger promotion budgets, especially for tourists from China and India,” said Tourism and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Aziz, who was at the launch of the 6th Global Summit on Urban Tourism.

“We are grateful that the government recognises the pressing need for better visa services to attract more Chinese and Indian tourists, but the awareness and the ability to advertise our products is also a must. So, we need more money to achieve that.”

Source: Malay Mail

Despite the fact that the government already allocated RM500 million to development and promotional activities (e.g. improving tourist facilities, home-stay and eco-tourism programmes) in Budget 2018, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz stated that an additional RM300 million is needed for advertising and promotional activities, calling the RM500 million budget “tight”.

“Our ministry’s budget is different from others,” the minister explained.

“We need to pay deposits in advance booking for space to advertise our products. When the government reduced the budget from RM200 million for promotional activities over the past years, we were left with no more than RM110 million.”

“The RM500 million under the budget was actually to pay our debts for the advance bookings from year 2015 – 2017, so we need another RM300 million to advertise and promote our tourism products.”

Source: The Star

What do you think of this appeal the Ministry of Tourism and Culture is making? Do you think it would help improve our tourism industry in the long run? Let us know in the comments below!

Also read: Tourism Tax Introduced to Pay Back RM250 Million Debt Incurred by Tourism Board