Jamallulil: Tourism MalaysiaÂ?s office in Dubai looks after six countries. The UAE is the most important market followed by Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar and Iran.

The UAE and Kuwait are the primary markets whereas the rest are secondary and emerging.

The rest of the Middle East region is handled by Tourism MalaysiaÂ?s Jeddah office, which is responsible for Saudi Arabia, Levant and North Africa.

Gulf News: What challenges do you face in promoting Malaysia in this region?

Jamallulil: Since we aggressively stepped into this market six years ago, the growth in tourist arrivals has been tremendous.

We had 50,000 tourists from the Middle East in 1999, but in 2005 this number grew to 150,000. The numbers keep growing and we expect more Arabs to visit to Malaysia, especially due to the Visit Malaysia Year campaign for 2007.

During the summer period there is a shortage of airline seats and hotel rooms to accommodate the demand from Arab and expatriate visitors. Another challenge for us is how to have more year-round arrivals from this region instead of seasonal rush during the three-month summer break.

Gulf News: What attracts Arabs to Malaysia?

Jamallulil: Malaysia offers a good mixture of everything an Arab traveller seeks. The powerful visuals in the Malaysia Truly Asia campaign have stimulated this interest. The central theme of different cultures living in harmony has succeeded in providing reassurance of being greeted by warm and friendly people.

Arabs see Malaysia as a country that is Islamic, friendly, safe, and has wonderful natural scenery, jungles, mountains and beaches.

It is a value-for-money destination. Our currency ringgit is almost one to one to the dirham.

Gulf News: Do you think Asian destinations will benefit from increased scrutiny of Arabs and Muslims in the West?

Jamallulil: There might be some effect of this. Overall Malaysia is great destination and its attractions have been able to attract Arab tourists whether there is scrutiny or not in the West. Nowadays tourists are more educated and they know where they want to go.

Gulf News: What are your projections on tourist numbers for this year?

Jamallulil: In 2005, about 150,000 tourists from the Middle East visited Malaysia as compared with 126,000 in 2004. It is a 17.1 per cent growth.

There were 53,000 tourists from Saudi Arabia, 30,000 from the UAE, 13,000 from Kuwait and 10,000 Omanis.

In 2006 we have a target of 200,000 tourists from the region. We are now concentrating more on the year 2007 as we will mark 50 years of independence.

The target is to bring in 20.1 million tourists from around the world. Last year we had 16.4 million foreign tourists and earned Dh30 billion from tourism.