Brunei's Big Help To Malaysian Tourism
By Rosli Abidin Yahya

Bandar Seri Begawan - Brunei has hugely contributed to the Malaysian tourism industry last year.

Some 256,952 tourists from Brunei chose Malaysia as their holiday destination making it the sixth largest number of tourist arrivals after Singapore (7,547,761), Thailand (1,166,937), Indonesia (769,128), China (557,647) and Japan (354,563).

Most of the Brunei tourists entered Malaysia mainly from the control posts of Tedungan and Sungai Tujuh.

Tourist arrivals from the United Kingdom ranked seventh with 239,294 people, followed by Taiwan (209,706), Australia (193,794), India (183,360), United States (127,920), Hong Kong (116,409), the Philippines (107, 527), South Korea (64,301) and Germany (54,645).

Brunei tourists have contributed to the Malaysian tourism industry that had attracted 13.3 million visitors, resulting in a contribution of some RM67 billion to the country's economy last year. The tourist arrivals have showed an increase of 4 per cent compared to the previous year.

The impressive performance contributed an estimate of RM42.6 billion to the national gross domestic product while foreign exchange brought stood at RM25.2 billion, statistics from business magazines stated.

According to the New York-based World Travel and Tourism Council and the Malaysian Institute of Economic Research, tax revenue derived from tourist arrivals was between RM5 - 6 billion, while the estimated service tax stood at RM500 million for 2001.

The growth in the tourism industry has been attributed to the extensive marketing campaign in Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia.

Furthermore, the exchange value of the ringgit vis-à-vis other currencies also made Malaysia a value-for- money destination for shoppers and visitors.

This year, the Malaysian tourism may be getting an extra RM2 billion in allocations for promotional activities to increase tourist arrivals into the country.

The growth in tourism industry there definitely raised a few eyebrows in the wake of many western nations' travel advisories issued to their nationals after the Bali bombings last October.

The country is said to be targeting Asian and Asean countries to cushion any adverse effects if a war were to break out in Iraq. (Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin)

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