KUALA TERENGGANU: Tourism industry players in the country are recommended to be more focused and active in attracting visitors from Central Asia, said Islamic Tourism Centre (ITC) director-general Datuk Seri Abdul Khani Daud.
He said this was necessary if Malaysia wanted to remain in first place in the global Islamic tourism index, as recognised by the MasterCard-Crescent Rating Global Muslim Travel Index (GMTI) for nine consecutive years.
However, Malaysia has had to share top spot with Indonesia for the first time ever this year.
“We have penetrated markets in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, but there are still many more unexplored countries like Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Bosnia and even Russia, which has a big Muslim community.
“ITC has conducted research regarding behaviour and preference among the people in these countries and found them to be a huge potential because they view Malaysia as a strong Islamic nation and comfortable for Islamic tourism,” he told reporters after attending the “Symposium On Islamic Tourism” here today.
The symposium, which is being held outside of Kuala Lumpur for the first time, was officiated by Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture deputy secretary-general Datuk Haslina Abdul Hamid and also attended by state Tourism, Culture and Information Technology Committee chairman Ariffin Deraman.
Abdul Khani said that according to the data issued by GMTI, the tourism sector in the Islamic world is estimated to be worth $212 billion (about RM871 billion) in 2020 and Malaysia should grab the opportunity to boost its economy.
Meanwhile, he said that ITC had listed “pondok” school institutions as among products with the potential to be developed under the Islamic educational tourism segment.
He said the ITC was in the midst of identifying suitable “pondok” schools to be turned into educational tourism centres to attract visitors, especially from Brunei, Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand.
“Even now there are tourists coming from these countries to learn about Islamic religion in Malaysia, but it is not properly and orderly structured.
“Therefore, we want to organise it (‘pondok’ school-based tourism) systematically and maybe even turn it into a homestay or visiting friends and relatives (VFR) concept,” he said. – Bernama
