Minister In Malaysian Tourism Push In Kuwait

Datuk Seri Dr Ng Yen Yen kicked off a tourism road show here with a meeting with top tour operators Saturday night where she touted the possibility of visitors from Kuwait and beyond being involved in property investment in Malaysia.

The Malaysian tourism minister said interested parties could also look into developing boutique hotels in Malaysia. Elaborating, she told the gathering that visitors could buy a second home in Malaysia, for example."In this manner, Malaysia will not just be seen as a tourist destination but also as a place away from home to get away to during the summer.

"So, instead of zooming off to places like London or Paris, it's now Malaysia," she later told the Malaysian media covering her visit to Kuwait. Education tourism and medical tourism could be further developed from there, said Dr Ng who is in the Kuwaiti capital after leading the Malaysian delegation at the May 4-7 Arabian Travel Market 2010 in Dubai.

On boutique hotels, the minister said "they were very interested". "I'll look further into it and see how we can proceed. They can always do a boutique hotel of, say, 50 room, 100 rooms," she said.According to her, potential customers would not be confined to Middle Easterners alone as people from other regions, like the millions of Muslims from China, travel as well.

Dr Ng also talked about the idea of developing super luxury holidays for well-heeled people."There's a very big opportunity for this market segment where holidaymakers will be treated like a king or queen," she said.The minister said her ministry would likely rope in only selected players for this purpose.

"We can't just open it to everybody because quality of service is absolutely critical. The moment the service quality is down, the project is finished," she noted.Dr Ng also briefed the tour operators on Tourism Malaysia's efforts to bring in more Arab tourists to Malaysia during the Ramadan fasting month.