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In 2014, Tourism Malaysia hit its target of 28 million arrivals. Revenues from tourism surpassed the previous year, 2013 by a significant margin of 10 percent. TM will be manning a booth at the Agent@Home Travel Summit and will be making a case for now being a great time to visit Malaysia, especially with the ringgit down 8.2 percent against the dollar over the last 12 months. The slip in ringgit value should spur more visitors, especially in a destination where the shopping is such a strong attraction.

One of Malaysia’s strongest suits is shopping in its capital, Kuala Lumpur, and in other destinations such as Melaka. This is a destination that deserves a lot more attention from American tourists than it usually gets. It has great beaches, world-class diving, pristine rain forests, historic destinations such as Melaka, Penang and Kuala Lumpur, exceptional shopping and one of Southeast Asia’s top cuisines.

Tourism promotion is taken very seriously by a government when it is the second largest earner of foreign currency. Thus tourism in Malaysia falls under the aegis of the Ministry of Tourism and Culture. The Malaysian Tourism Promotion Board (MTPB) operates TM offices in many countries around the world including two in the U.S., in New York and Los Angeles.

This year TM is highlighting the cultural pageantry of the country with its Malaysia Year of Festivals 2015 campaign in the hope of reaching more than 29 million arrivals and RM89 billion ($21 billion) from tourism this year. The MTPB reached its goal of 28 million tourists in 2014 and hope to reach 29.4 million visitors, this year with a long-term target of 68 million visitors by 2020.Though the U.S. is a relatively small market for Malaysia, in terms of arrivals, it does offer the sort of high revenue per tourist that can help Malaysia hit its goals in yield without despoiling the environment to do it.

The environmental majesty of such Malaysian destinations as Borneo as well as many Peninsular Malaysian places is a key resource. Culture, quality food and peerless experiential ecotourism resources give it a narrow but rich tourism market here in the U.S.

Agent@Home Travel Summits, the first of their kind, provide a forum where home-based travel agents, the readers of Agent@Home magazine, can network, learn how to improve their business, and discover more about travel industry products and services. Twin summits are scheduled in Long Beach, Calif., Sept. 15-18, and Atlantic City, N.J., Sept. 29-Oct. 2.

The summits bring Agent@Home, the only magazine that caters to home-based travel professionals and entrepreneurs, to life by offering extensive educational programming covering the top issues facing the travel agency trade today. Agent@Home is a sister publication to TravelPulse.com.

For more information or to register, click on Agent@Home Travel Summit. Travel suppliers interested in exhibiting and/or speaking at either event should contact show organizer Paul Muir at pmuir@mse-management.com.

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