HIGH END HOTELS NEEDED

Malaysia needs the right mix of quality hotels to attract high-yield tourists, said Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ng Yen Yen.

She said more investments were needed to upgrade hotels in Malaysia to four or five-star rating and, subsequently, increase their supply.

“In moving towards our ambition of growing tourist receipts by three times and tourist arrivals by 1.5 times, we will need more investments to ensure high quality of service,” said Datuk Seri Dr Ng.

She said that as at February, there were 1,610 hotels in the country, ranging from three to five-star hotels and budget establishments, offering 161,117 rooms.

“In Kuala Lumpur, there are 236 hotels offering about 30,000 rooms with the average occupancy rate of 66.9% last year. The number of rooms would need to be increased by 50% by 2020 for the Government to achieve its target of 36 million tourist arrivals.”