Tourism boom for Johor
JOHOR’S tourism industry continues to boom, with last year’s visitors likely to be more than 10 million.
In 2016, the state targeted about 5.5 million visitors but managed to draw a total of 9.9 million visitors (comprising 7.3 million domestic visitors and 2.6 million foreign tourists).
Johor Tourism, Domestic Trade and Consumerism Committee chairman Datuk Tee Siew Kiong is optimistic that the figures for 2017 exceeded 10 million visitors.
“The 2017 figures have not been announced yet, but our annual projection is always about 10% better than the year before and the final figures usually exceed our expectations,” he said.
Tee attributed the state’s growing tourism sector to its many attractive products and packages.
“We were once known as the Gateway to Malaysia. Johor is no longer that; we have more than 100 products of our own now,” he said, adding that the state was home to at least 10 theme parks.
On foreign arrivals, Singaporeans topped the list, followed by tourists from Indonesia and China.
“We are also working to get more visitors from India and the Middle East,” Tee added.
He said major tourism projects such as the RM4.5bil Desaru Cove in Kota Tinggi would definitely draw in tourists, adding: “This project has fivestar hotels, golfing and other products, and is slated to open by this year.”
He added that the state government was also working closely with the Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents to introduce 50 unique packages promoting interesting places in the state.
These packages were drawn up based on tourism segments to meet the expectations of domestic and foreign tourists.
On flights to Johor, Tee said that Senai International Airport had recorded three million passengers last year compared with 1.99 million passengers in 2013.
Johor is connected by air to 11 cities and towns in Malaysia and eight international cities – Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh, Jakarta, Surabaya, Guangzhou, Macao, Kolkata and Seoul.
Tee also urged tour agencies to team up and form consortiums to leverage on their expertise.
He pointed out that investments continued to pour into the state as between 2013 and 2016, some RM93bil worth of investments were recorded.
“In 2016, we attracted some RM26.4bil for 165 projects,” he said, adding that this created 8,587 new jobs.
He added that most of the investments were for electric and electronics products, fabricated metal products, plastic products, chemical and chemical products, and food manufacturing.
The state’s nine focus sectors for investments were in electrical and electronics, petrochemicals and oil and gas, agro food, logistics, tourism, textile, palm oilbased products, rubberbased products and woodbased products.
“We are now looking at emerging industries such as financial services, creative, medical, education, biotechnology, halal products and information and communications technology,” he added.