How to Promote Your Hotel to Foreign Country

FRANKFURT: Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board (Tourism Malaysia) is mobilising representatives of Malaysian hotels operating in Europe to promote Malaysia as an attractive destination.

Last week, Tourism Malaysia organised a successful meeting with 16 representatives of Malaysian hotels in Europe.

Syed Yahya Syed Othman, director of Tourism Malaysia in Frankfurt, told Bernama that he was 'extremely pleased' with the response from the representatives.

"I urge the hotel representatives to work closely with Tourism Malaysia and the airlines. All the representatives agreed to coordinate with Tourism Malaysia.

"We will organise roadshows in Germany this October.

"Most of the hotel representatives are in Germany, the biggest source of tourism traffic in continental Europe, though there were also others from other European countries.

"I am going to organise a meeting for the hotel representatives with tour operators," Syed Yahya added.

Tourism Malaysia had also invited representatives to partner hotels to organise familiarisation tours for journalists to participate in the International Press Treasure Hunt in Malaysia.

Syed Yahya also said his office was launching a three-month 'tactical campaign' in conjunction with Singapore Airlines in Switzerland.

"This will also attract Swiss tourists to visit Malaysia via Singapore," he said, adding that in September, a similar campaign would be held in Germany with the collaboration of Singapore Airlines and Malaysia Airlines (MAS).

Meanwhile, Malaysia will participate as a 'partner country' at the CMT Holiday Exhibition to be held in Stuttgart next January, an important event for the travel, tourism, recreational and other hospitality services.

Messe Stuttgart managing director Roland Bleinroth said this year's visitor figures of 220,000 surpassed last year's turnout of 206,000 visitors.

Another trend in the tourism field would be the growing number of tourists interested in camping and caravan tourism -- a trend that could benefit Malaysia if it used this trend to its advantage by offering similar facilities and effectively highlighting them in major foreign markets.

Oliver Waidelich, managing director of German Association for the Caravanning Industry said, "CMT was an attractive showcase for the industry, which created desire for mobile leisure time and holidays with its displays.

"Both suppliers and exhibitors of accessories and camp sites are delighted with the high standard of visitors," he added.

Syed Yahya said Malaysia would organise a big gala dinner for the tourism trade, accompanied by entertainment to be provided by a dance troupe from Malaysia and Malaysian