TOURISM GURU Award

where2 travel magazine’s TOURISM GURU award goes to Melaka Chief Minister

Where2 Travel & Lifestyle has conferred on Melaka Chief Minister its inaugural award of Tourism Guru. Melaka under his leadership has outperformed all other 13 states to rank top with the highest number of tourist arrivals in the country.

The historical city of Melaka has regained its former prominence; where once it was an important trading port along the Spice Route, it is today a top 10 Asia tourism destination.

This Tourism Guru award is the culmination of a series of write-ups on Tourism Personality published in where2 travel magazine.

where2 Editor KY Pung presented the Tourism Guru award to Datuk Seri Utama Haji Ir. Idris Haji Haron at a brief ceremony at the Chief Minister’s Office on Aug 10.

where2 Editor KY Pung presented the Tourism Guru award to Datuk Seri Utama Haji Ir. Idris Haji Haron.

Present are the Melaka State Secretary Datuk Seri Haji Naim Abu Bakar, Deputy State Exco member for Tourism Datuk Wira Haji Ghazale Muhamad and Melaka Tourism Promotion Board Norena Jaafar.

The Chief Minister, in accepting the accolade, said the State Government has spared no effort to promoting tourism both in and outside the country and is proud of its success.

“Don’t mess with Melaka” is a successful campaign to encourage cleanliness practise in Melaka

“Lonely Planet has acknowledged Melaka ranks fourth out of the top 10 tourism destinations in Asia,” he said.

Last year, Melaka’s tourist arrival topped 16 million, of which about 30% were foreign tourists, mainly from China, Singapura, and Indoneisa.

Tourists from China numbering 1.14 million have for the first time ever overtaken Singapore (1.08 million visitors) while Indonesia have 563,941, Taiwan (128,504) and Japan (96,917).

A happy Datuk Seri Idris was pleased to read out the citation at a press conference.

Datuk Seri Idris was pleased to read out the citation. Look on are Melaka State Secretary Datuk Seri Haji Naim Abu Bakar(third from left), Deputy State Exco member for Tourism Datuk Wira Haji Ghazale Muhamad (second from left) and Melaka Tourism Promotion Board Norena Jaafar (first on left).