KL ranked ninth in tourist arrivals

KUALA LUMPUR: Kuala Lumpur is now ranked ninth out of 100 leading cities in the world in terms of international tourist arrivals by the Euromonitor International in its annual Top City Destinations ranking.

Kuala Lumpur Mayor Datuk Seri Ahmad Phesal Talib said the report recorded 11.2 million international tourists visited Kuala Lumpur in 2013, reflecting the importance of KL to global tourism, in terms of business and leisure.

Under the Kuala Lumpur Tourism Master Plan 2015-2025, he said, one of the key areas that must be worked on was to market Kuala Lumpur in a targeted manner and provide industry players and tourists with better access to city information.

He said this when launching Hello KL e-newsletter and #IAMKL Online Campaign here.

The e-newsletter would be a useful and effective tool in providing information on tourism updates in Kuala Lumpur and it would be a valuable resource for all parties promoting the city as a preferred tourist destination.

“We expect 15 million tourist arrivals for this year, where 10.1 million will be made up of overseas tourists, while 4.9 million are local tourists.

“To effectively brand Kuala Lumpur as a dynamic tourist destination, it is important for us to use digital media and utilise its full potential such as the Hello KL e-newsletter and #IAMKL campaign, for a start,” he said.

Ahmad Phesal added that the tourism industry players were welcomed to contribute content for the e-newsletter, reaching out to international audience and also allowing travel agents to creatively develop tour packages and itinera­ries that would be more appealing and attractive.

The main objective of #IAMKL was to engage the international audience in a fun and vibrant way while raising awareness of the city among travellers and enticing them to visit Kuala Lumpur, he said.

Ahmad Phesal said #IAMKL utilised social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as well as the official campaign website www.iamkl.com.

Visitors to Kuala Lumpur are invited to upload selfies with identifiable scenes of the city in the background, followed by the hashtag of #IAMKL.

Hello KL e-newsletter will be published on a bi-monthly basis.

Those who wish to subscribe the e-newsletter can email to [e-mail]. — Bernama