Today news update, 24 March 2011

 MAS aims to be Asia's champion

The world renowned airline, MALAYSIA Airlines (MAS), is halfway towards becoming Asia's champion in terms of product offering and quality service. Chairman Tan Sri Dr Mohamed Munir Abdul Majid said the national carrier is already Asia's best airline in terms of service and having the world's best cabin crew. Despite the current rising oil price, the Chairman still hold positive outlook on MAS expansion move, as well as compete in stiffer environment.

Besides saying that the airline has a good balance sheet, and cash position, Munir also said that it is expected that more aircraft will be delivered which includes Boeing 738, Boeing 737-800 and Airbus A330-800.

Tourism Malaysia Strategises To Woo More Singaporeans To Malaysia

Singapore contributed nearly 53 per cent of the total tourist arrivals to Malaysia in the last few years. Hence, the Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board has lined up strategies to continuously introduce affordable new tourism products and packages to woo more Singaporeans to Malaysia. Malaysia Tourism Singapore director Zalizam Zakaria said Singapore was a "very huge and important market for us".

Tourism industry has more room to grow

Last year alone, we can see there were several new hotels have started its operations throughout Klang Valley. Among those are as following:


- G City Club Hotel, Jalan Tun Razak – 5 star (124 rooms)
- Premiere Hotel, Bandar Bukit Tinggi 1 – 4 star (250 rooms)
- The Empire Hotel, SS16, Subang Jaya – 4 star (198 rooms)
- Doubletree by Hilton Kuala Lumpur (formerly Crown Princess, Jalan Tun Razak – 5 star (540 rooms)

This year onwards, some new luxurious hotel will be started its operation, which means the future supply of hotel in Klang Valley is quite enough to cater for the market demand.

Following is the list of new hotels to be opened in 2011. 


- Grand Hyatt, Jalan Pinang,- 5 star
- Pullman Hotel Kuala Lumpur, Pantai Bharu, 5 star
- Taragon Puteri KL Hotel, Pudu, KL, 4 star
- Royale Bintang Surian, Mutiara Damansara, 4 star

Apart from the list above, it is expected that some hotels listed following will be operating in 2012.
- G, KL Sentral, Jalan Tun Sambathan, 4 star
- TheOlives Hotel, Subang Jaya, 4 star
- Majestic Hotel Kuala Lumpur, Jalan Sultan Hishamuddin (star rating n.a.)

Besides that, we will have the first Malaysia six star hotel in the coming 2014. This hotel is situated along Jalan Travers, which is known as St Regis Hotel.

With all these mega project of hotels, we can foresee that there is still room to grow in the tourism sector. We should know that tourism is the fifth largest sector in Malaysia, it has contributed to nation economic development by creating a lot of job opportunities.Tourism covers a large part of the livelihood of Malaysians. Restaurants, airliners, tour agency, shopping malls as well as many others industry will be benefited if we can achieve sustainable growth in tourism sector. 

Hence, we should appreciate what we have now in Malaysia. Natural beaches, forest reserves, as well as other cultural heritage site should be well-preserved by all relevant parties.

With huge land area, Malaysia has more than enough spaces to allow more corporation to invest in mega project here, if compare with other nations. We should perceive this as a great opportunities in that sense that we can build more luxurious hotels and resorts to suit the needs of the high-end travelers. The Meetings, Incentives, Convention and Exhibition (MICE) sector will also be able to grow faster as we have the capacity to accommodate a large crowd of business travelers.

With the implementation of the Economic Transformation Programme recently, we can conclude that the tourism sector Malaysia has its potential to sustain its growth in the coming years.

The construction of more and more new hotels itself can be interpreted as a sign that the hoteliers must  have positive outlook on the tourist arrivals to Malaysia.