Travel & Hospitality
Cater To Needs And Preferences Of Tourists, Says Najib
By Bernama
Sep 26, 2005, 16:39

Cater To Needs And Preferences Of Tourists, Says Najib

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 22 (Bernama) -- The domestic tourism sector can achieve sustainable growth if its participants are able to cater to the needs and preferences of tourists, Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said Thursday.

"There must be a greater emphasis on the need to align product development to meet standards that will satisfy domestic and foreign tourists' preferences and demands," he said.

To encourage the continuous growth of tourism in the region, Najib stressed that the infrastructure, productivity, product quality and excellence in the delivery of services across a wide range of supporting industries needed to be improved.

"Foremost in our minds must be the collective efforts to ensure the (foreign) tourists feel welcome and comfortable enough in Malaysia to want to return and to encourage others to visit Malaysia," he said when officiating the Food and Hotel Malaysia 2005 Exhibition here.

As an example, the Deputy Prime Minister said that five-star hotels needed to make greater efforts to improve the quality of local cuisines that they serve.

He observed that top-notch local cuisines were still being served in Malaysian homes and not at the five-star hotels.

Najib said Malaysia has benefited from the Asian tourism boom with the country's tourism receipts rising by 39.5 percent to RM29.7 billion last year from RM21.3 billion in 2003.

As for international tourist arrivals, he said these rose to 15.7 million last year from 7.9 million in 1999.

On the projections for 2005, Najib said tourism receipts are estimated to increase to RM34.9 billion and international tourist arrivals expected to rise to 17.1 million.

Turning to the food sector, the Deputy Prime Minister believes that the expansion of the industry must be geared towards efforts to position the country as a regional halal food hub.

Today, the global halal food industry is worth US$150 billion (RM565.3 billion) while Malaysia export stands at nearly RM6.5 billion, he pointed out.

As such, there is obviously room for growth in this area, he said.

On the measures undertaken in preparing Malaysia as a halal food hub, Najib said these included capacity-building efforts in inspection, monitoring, standardisation and certification of halal standards, and promotion of the halal food processing industry.

He said Malaysia has the capacity to establish an international halal food centre and emerge as the world's top halal food producer.

In addition, the country could become a centre for marketing certification and reference, he added.

Najib also called on small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) to play a more aggressive role in enabling Malaysia's transformation into a world-class exporter of halal food as at present, only 30 percent of the SMEs exported their products.

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