By Manal Abdel Fattah
The Embassy of Malaysia in Cairo and the Malaysian Tourism Development and Revitalization Authority organized a conference on the occasion of the visit of a delegation of Malaysian tourism companies to Egypt with the aim of revitalizing tourism between the two countries.
The conference was attended by Ambassador Rafidah Abdulaziz, Acting Malaysian Ambassador to Egypt, Director of the Malaysian Tourism Development and Revitalization Authority, and Head of the Malaysian delegation to Egypt, Ahmed Faisal.
Ahmed Faisal, Director of the Malaysian Tourism Development and Revitalization Authority, said during press statements on the sidelines of the conference that the Malaysian Tourism Authority mission that arrived in Egypt to participate in the Tourism Promotion Conference seeks to support tourism relations between Egypt and Malaysia, noting that the event was previously organized in Hong Kong and Taiwan.Japan, Kuwait and Bahrain.
He added: We will certainly invite Malaysians to visit Egypt, continuing: Today we invited 9 Malaysian organizations to visit Egypt to introduce the Egyptian side more to the tourism and marketing sector in Malaysia.
Faisal confirmed that from January to November last year, Malaysia received more than 70 million tourists, which is an increase of about 3 million over the previous year, indicating that the country aspires to reach 80 million tourists this year.
He added that last year, Malaysia received more than 18 million and 745 thousand visitors from Egypt, adding: We aspire to increase this number by about 40% over last year.
He continued: We are working to increase cooperation between the Egyptian and Malaysian sides in the field of tourism, stressing that Malaysia ranked eighth as a friendly Muslim country in the world, and ranked first as a woman-friendly Muslim country last year, which was done through multiple internationally recognized standards.
The Director of the Tourism Promotion Authority confirmed that his country seeks to encourage and enhance cultural and tourism exchange with Egypt, adding: We have many activities through which we aspire to achieve governmental support among international parties for them, and we are working to benefit from Egypt’s expertise in this field.
The goal of the conference, which was held by the Malaysian Tourism Promotion Authority and the Malaysian Tourism Development Authority in the Middle East and Arab Countries, with the owners of Egyptian and Malaysian tourism companies, under the title “Salesmissian to Egypt,” and sponsored by the Malaysian Embassy in Cairo, is to discuss ways to enhance cooperation between representatives of the two countries in the field of tourism.
Many Malaysian tourism companies and their Egyptian counterparts participated in the celebration, as the Marketing Director of the Malaysian Tourism Development Authority, owners of Malaysian tourism companies, and some members of the Malaysian diplomatic mission in Egypt also participated.
