KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 16 — The Kuala Lumpur Tourism Bureau announced today that it aims to attract 12 million international tourists to the city this year, an increase of one million from last year’s numbers.
City mayor Datuk Mohd Amin Nordin Abd Aziz, who chaired the bureau’s meeting here, said it would involve a RM15 million allocation, which could possibly boost visitor spending from RM50 billion last year to RM62 billion.
“By organising more programmes and providing more facilities for tourists, we can be even more competitive against destinations like Bangkok, Singapore, Jakarta and more,” he told reporters after the meeting.
“Our target this year is 12 million tourists compared to last year, which was only 11 million. But it will involve a lot of hard work,” he added.
The highest recorded visit by international tourists to the city is 11.63 million visitors in 2014.
Mohd Amin said the bureau’s work involved all the industry players, but on the part of the Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL), the agency will be focussing on cleaning up the city and fixing existing damages to facilities such as walkways and streetlights.
The bureau’s advisory board is made up of 18 representatives from various industries such as hotel associations, airlines like Malaysia Airlines and AirAsia X, travel agency associations and associations related to local attractions.
The bureau was established in November last year and aims to introduce long-term tourism initiatives for the city.
It is tasked with implementing the Kuala Lumpur Tourism Master Plan 2015-2025, which aims to double foreign tourist arrivals and quadruple tourism income from RM19 billion in 2013 to RM79 billion by 2025.
