By Dharmender Singh

PUTRAJAYA, MALAYSIA: The Tourism Board will carry out promotions inflight as a more direct and easier way to reach out to foreign tourists.

The board was currently working with AirAsia on the inflight promotions with the target of increasing the number of tourists visiting the country from the 27million recorded last year, said Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Azalina Othman.

"Those on the flights might not be planning a holiday at that particular time, but they might decide to come here for a holiday next time after our promotions," she told a press conference here after launching the joint Zoom! Malaysia campaign promotions with AirAsia here yesterday.

With AirAsia flying 24 million passengers a year, she said the ministry was looking to attract about one million of them to holiday in Malaysia.

The Tourism Board was also aggressively promoting domestic tourism and was looking at various ways to team up with airlines and their networking to do so.

Azalina was confident Malaysia would be able to woo more tourists as it had many advantages compared to its Asean neighbours in terms of cheap accommodation and food, many different kinds of attractions and political stability.

She added that tourism here had a great potential for growth even in the current global economic slowdown and would be able to act as a buffer for the local economy.

AirAsia chief executive chairman Datuk Tony Fernandes said the airline would find ways to woo foreign passengers having a stopover in Malaysia to take a short break here.

"We hope to get those flying to London or Australia to stay for a short visit in Kota Kinabalu, Penang or Langkawi.

"We are looking at coming out with our promotion plans over the next few weeks," he said, adding that the airline wanted to create more long-term tourism promotion plans.

The Star/Asia News Network