Tourism Minister Ng Yen Yen today said that her overseas visits had generated publicity worth RM36.5 million for Malaysia's tourism industry.

NONE She said it was a result of her visits, which included 306 promotional events, briefings, seminars, travel marts, press conferences, media interviews, special meetings including meeting with 20 tourism ministers from Asean, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec), United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) and Group of Twenty (G20) member countries.

"The missions generated direct publicity in the cities visited. This does not include new tourism packages offered to the market such as the Parks and Gardens package, homestay package and others," she told reporters at the Parliament's lobby.

Between January and August this year, Ng said the tourism industry had recorded 16.18 million foreign tourist arrivals, an increase of 5.2 percent compared to 15.38 million tourist arrivals recorded in the corresponding period last year.

She said the total income of the tourism industry had also increased by RM1.9 billion to RM36.50 billion during the same period this year.

  Income-generating activities

Ng said that her visits had also prompted her to plan various income-generating activities including a joint-venture with a bank in South Korea to promote the 'Malaysia, My Second Home' programme to the people of that country.

"I have also arranged for charter flights from Seoul to Malaysia at the end of this year. Almost 5,000 tourists are expected to arrive in Malaysia through the flights," she added.

Meanwhile, at the launching of the Malaysia Business Tourism Green Programme here, Ng said the Malaysia Convention and Exhibition Bureau (MyCEB) targeted planting 1,000 trees by next year to support the government's initiative to offset carbon emissions by 40 per cent by 2020.

She said MyCEB would work with the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia (Frim) on the initiative.

The text of her speech was read out by Tourism Ministry secretary-general Ong Hong Peng.

Also present was MyCEB chief executive officer Zulkefli Sharif.

- Bernama