"Malaysia has all the right elements for a great tourism product. All we need to do is to package them according to our target audience's taste and be creative in marketing it to foreign tourists," said our former deputy minister of tourism  Dato Ng Cheng Kwai.

Pahlawan Foong Wai Fong and Pat Lu caught up with Dato Ng over lunch to talk about the Visit Malaysia Cyber Campaign and to pick the former deputy minister's brain on how to make the campaign a success.  The former minister applauded the Pahlawans for their initiative and showed his support by accepting our invitation to become a Pahlawan.

Below is an excerpt of our very friendly Dato Ng's advice for Malaysian tour operators:
 

• The Malaysian government and tourism operators should maximize the use of the Internet to boost tourism.  We should work to MAKE OUR WEBSITES MORE INTERESTING, and we can perhaps start by making the domain name more friendly.  Changing from http://www.tourism.gov.my to http://www.MalaysiaTourism may help us get more hits.  The Government and the private sector can work together to make out tourism website an interesting and informative site.  I believe this would be very helpful in preparing tourists for a visit to Malaysia.

 
• Foreign residents and Singaporean tourists can really enjoy Malaysia if we help them with timely information on what is going on and perhaps even plan an interesting itinerary for them. For example, they would love to use our highway to visit the small towns and enjoy the many local delights along the way if only they know where to find them and how to get there.  More and more Singaporeans for example would love to drive round Malaysia to enjoy the natural scenery and savor our local delights; where to find the best nyonya kuih, Indian food, Malay curry etc.

 
• As for the locals, they need different information (not the run of the mill type).  For example, a Malaysian middle class tourist intending to travel to the East Coast, would like to know where to eat the best D21 durian and when?  And what are the best restaurants in Karak or Lipis selling Jelawat fish for lunch.  Where can they find a Sunday market on their way back etc?

Dato Ng feels that Malaysian tour operators should be more creative and promotion-oriented in getting the word out there.  "We have a big catchment market in Singapore -- many Singapore tourists are yearning to discover beautiful Malaysia and do things they normally can't have the opportunity to do in Singapore.

We should put on our thinking caps and create events and festivals to draw in the tourists. For example during the Chinese New Year, Singaporean kids would love to play with fireworks or dance the lion dance.  We can create the festival for foreigners to play with locals in celebrating our many interesting festivals," offered Dato Ng.
 

Kuala Lumpur, January 25 1999