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By Muin Abdul Majid
DUBAI, March 3 (Bernama) -- Tourism Malaysia is joining hands with tourism players in Morocco in an effort to increase the number of visitors from the north African country to Malaysia.
Its regional director for Africa, West and South Asia, Abdul Rahman Shaari, said tour operators in Morocco had shown keen interest to promote tourist destinations in Malaysia.
"We received around 7,000 visitors from Morocco. The number may be small but there is increasing interest in Malaysia among the Moroccan people," he told Bernama of his recent visit to the kingdom which included its capital Rabat and largest city, Casablanca.
Abdul Rahman said Tourism Malaysia would come up with special packages on Malaysia in collaboration with Moroccan tour operators.
"We're going to assist in terms of producing brochures and leaflets to enable them to promote our country there as well as select an airline to work with on this initiative," he said.
Abdul Rahman said Malaysia seemed to appeal to Moroccans as, being Muslim countries, both shared many commonalities.
He said that in many markets in the Middle East region, more often than not word-of-mouth played a role in tourism promotion.
"If a visitor likes his or her experience in Malaysia, then that person will spread the word around among relatives and friends.
"Of course this can be both positive and negative because if they have unpleasant episodes, then we have a problem as people here tend to believe what their friends and relatives say," he observed.
But Tourism Malaysia is not leaving any stone unturned in its bid to promote Malaysia in Morocco.
One possibility would be collaboration with a popular Moroccan singer who had expressed interest to shoot his music video clip in Malaysia, said Abdul Rahman.
He said Malaysia obtained a lot of tourism mileage when Lebanese superstar Ragheb Alama shot his music video in the Southeast Asian nation of 27 million a few years ago.
"This is niche marketing that we need to do as common methods like advertisements, disseminating brochures and so on are well and good but they can be very costly," said Abdul Rahman.
He said Tourism Malaysia was also planning to organise Malaysian food and cultural promotions in Morocco. -- BERNAMA
DUBAI, March 3 (Bernama) -- Tourism Malaysia is joining hands with tourism players in Morocco in an effort to increase the number of visitors from the north African country to Malaysia.
Its regional director for Africa, West and South Asia, Abdul Rahman Shaari, said tour operators in Morocco had shown keen interest to promote tourist destinations in Malaysia.
"We received around 7,000 visitors from Morocco. The number may be small but there is increasing interest in Malaysia among the Moroccan people," he told Bernama of his recent visit to the kingdom which included its capital Rabat and largest city, Casablanca.
Abdul Rahman said Tourism Malaysia would come up with special packages on Malaysia in collaboration with Moroccan tour operators.
"We're going to assist in terms of producing brochures and leaflets to enable them to promote our country there as well as select an airline to work with on this initiative," he said.
Abdul Rahman said Malaysia seemed to appeal to Moroccans as, being Muslim countries, both shared many commonalities.
He said that in many markets in the Middle East region, more often than not word-of-mouth played a role in tourism promotion.
"If a visitor likes his or her experience in Malaysia, then that person will spread the word around among relatives and friends.
"Of course this can be both positive and negative because if they have unpleasant episodes, then we have a problem as people here tend to believe what their friends and relatives say," he observed.
But Tourism Malaysia is not leaving any stone unturned in its bid to promote Malaysia in Morocco.
One possibility would be collaboration with a popular Moroccan singer who had expressed interest to shoot his music video clip in Malaysia, said Abdul Rahman.
He said Malaysia obtained a lot of tourism mileage when Lebanese superstar Ragheb Alama shot his music video in the Southeast Asian nation of 27 million a few years ago.
"This is niche marketing that we need to do as common methods like advertisements, disseminating brochures and so on are well and good but they can be very costly," said Abdul Rahman.
He said Tourism Malaysia was also planning to organise Malaysian food and cultural promotions in Morocco. -- BERNAMA
