Tourism industry doing well despite 'cuts': Nazri

PETALING JAYA: The Tourism and Culture Ministry has done "well" even after the government had cut its budget allocation over the years.
Its Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz (pix) said the ministry had achieved 112% of its Key Performance Indicators (KPI), and the tourism sector has contributed RM73.3bil to Malaysia's gross national income (GNI) last year.
He added the Government's decision to enable e-visa applications from China, including a visa free option, had also given a positive impact as it has resulted in 26.7% increase of Chinese visitors last year.
"Because of the situation in the petroleum industry, we saw that the government had losses in their income and there are more important sectors such as education and health, if compared to tourism.
"The government has also reduced the budget (for tourism) very badly over the past years, but life must go on, and that's why the Prime Minister (Datuk Seri Najib Abduk Razak) has introduced the Tourism Tax," Nazri said during a press conference after he officiates the Malaysia Business Events Week 2017 held at One World hotel here.
Nazri said the Ministry expects to collect RM200mil in 2018 from the tax that was introduced this month.
He added the Tourism Tax is one of the government's way to overcome the budget concern in regards to tourism promotional activities.
"We are in a little bit of a struggle because until August this year, the arrival of tourist dropped 0.4% compared to last year.
"But we must look forward, we must find money to advertise otherwise we will lose to Indonesia, Thailand or Vietnam as they offer the same product.