Marketing Malaysia to the Middle East Tourists: towards a preferred inter-regional destinations

This paper attempts to demonstrate the importance of the Middle East market to the Malaysian tourism industry, to discuss their travel profiles and behavior, and finally to suggest strategies to better position Malaysia as the most preferred inter-regional destination among the Arab tourists. It is...

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Main Authors:	Ahmad Azmi M. Ariffin, Mohd Safar Hasim
Format:	Article
Language:	English
Published:	Institut Kajian Rantau Asia Barat 2009
Online Access:	http://journalarticle.ukm.my/177/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/177/1/1.pdf

id	ukm-177
recordtype	eprints
spelling	ukm-1772016-12-14T06:26:38Z http://journalarticle.ukm.my/177/ Marketing Malaysia to the Middle East Tourists: towards a preferred inter-regional destinations Ahmad Azmi M. Ariffin, Mohd Safar Hasim, This paper attempts to demonstrate the importance of the Middle East market to the Malaysian tourism industry, to discuss their travel profiles and behavior, and finally to suggest strategies to better position Malaysia as the most preferred inter-regional destination among the Arab tourists. It is estimated that there will be a total of 35 million outbound tourist arrivals from the Middle East in 2020. The Arab tourists tend to stay longer, spend more and are unfazed by the high tropical temperatures. The Middle East region is also a very viable market for tourism as it is home to a growing young population with a high per capita income, particularly the Saudi Arabia and UAE. This paper also discusses the pattern of outbound tourism from the region as well as the marketing efforts undertaken by the Malaysian tourism players to attract the Middle East travelers. Malaysia promotional efforts so far very much concentrated for tourism products and services within the Klang Valley area and tourism players in other parts of the country are still far from the so called “Arab Tourist’s Friendly”. It is suggested that Malaysia should focus more of their marketing efforts to well capture the Saudi Arabia and UAE outbound travel, to develop distinctive youth-oriented tourism products, to increase air links between major tourist cities in Malaysia and the Middle East, to start fully utilize the internet media for promotion and distribution, and to encourage the Arabs to purchase timeshare vacation homes in Malaysia. Institut Kajian Rantau Asia Barat 2009 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://journalarticle.ukm.my/177/1/1.pdf Ahmad Azmi M. Ariffin, and Mohd Safar Hasim, (2009) Marketing Malaysia to the Middle East Tourists: towards a preferred inter-regional destinations. Jurnal Antarabangsa Kajian Asia Barat, 1 . pp. 39-53. ISSN 2229-8924
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Local University
institution	Universiti Kebangasaan Malaysia
building	UKM Institutional Repository
collection	Online Access
language	English
description	This paper attempts to demonstrate the importance of the Middle East market to the Malaysian tourism industry, to discuss their travel profiles and behavior, and finally to suggest strategies to better position Malaysia as the most preferred inter-regional destination among the Arab tourists. It is estimated that there will be a total of 35 million outbound tourist arrivals from the Middle East in 2020. The Arab tourists tend to stay longer, spend more and are unfazed by the high tropical temperatures. The Middle East region is also a very viable market for tourism as it is home to a growing young population with a high per capita income, particularly the Saudi Arabia and UAE. This paper also discusses the pattern of outbound tourism from the region as well as the marketing efforts undertaken by the Malaysian tourism players to attract the Middle East travelers. Malaysia promotional efforts so far very much concentrated for tourism products and services within the Klang Valley area and tourism players in other parts of the country are still far from the so called “Arab Tourist’s Friendly”. It is suggested that Malaysia should focus more of their marketing efforts to well capture the Saudi Arabia and UAE outbound travel, to develop distinctive youth-oriented tourism products, to increase air links between major tourist cities in Malaysia and the Middle East, to start fully utilize the internet media for promotion and distribution, and to encourage the Arabs to purchase timeshare vacation homes in Malaysia.
format	Article
author	Ahmad Azmi M. Ariffin, Mohd Safar Hasim,
spellingShingle	Ahmad Azmi M. Ariffin, Mohd Safar Hasim, Marketing Malaysia to the Middle East Tourists: towards a preferred inter-regional destinations
author_facet	Ahmad Azmi M. Ariffin, Mohd Safar Hasim,
author_sort	Ahmad Azmi M. Ariffin,
title	Marketing Malaysia to the Middle East Tourists: towards a preferred inter-regional destinations
title_short	Marketing Malaysia to the Middle East Tourists: towards a preferred inter-regional destinations
title_full	Marketing Malaysia to the Middle East Tourists: towards a preferred inter-regional destinations
title_fullStr	Marketing Malaysia to the Middle East Tourists: towards a preferred inter-regional destinations
title_full_unstemmed	Marketing Malaysia to the Middle East Tourists: towards a preferred inter-regional destinations
title_sort	marketing malaysia to the middle east tourists: towards a preferred inter-regional destinations
publisher	Institut Kajian Rantau Asia Barat
publishDate	2009
url	http://journalarticle.ukm.my/177/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/177/1/1.pdf
first_indexed	2023-09-18T19:01:21Z
last_indexed	2023-09-18T19:01:21Z
_version_	1777403094692265984

Marketing Malaysia to the Middle East Tourists: towards a preferred inter-regional destinations

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