Arabia Tourist Land to Boost Malaysian Economy

posted on: Jun 21, 2009

The developer of Asia’s first “Arabia land” for tourists said Sunday his new leisure project aims to offer up to a thousand local jobs by next March.

Up to 850 jobs will be available to locals of the state of Melaka, where Sheikh Saleh al-Mansour’s first Arab City in Asia is scheduled to finish contruction early next year, according to the Malaysian-based Asia Daily News. He said the project would begin hiring local Malaysian staff in August.

Local employees, who will make up 75 percent of the staff at the Arab city, will receive a seven-month training course on Arab language and culture to enable impeccable service to Arab and non tourists.

“Once the complex and facilities are completed, the workers will be able to attend to the visitors, mainly Arabs, with ease,” Mansur, president of Golden Heritage investment company and the primary developer of the project, said at a press conference in Malacca Sunday, predicting that more business opportunities would emerge when the project generates “more economic growth in Malacca.”
Experts in tourist and commercial services from the Arab world will supervise the city’s multiple restaurants, health spas and bazaars.

Worth $300 million, the Arab City project will include a trading center in Kampung Jawa with various shopping bazaars, Arabic themed restaurants, cafes and a museum of Arabic artifacts. A five-star hotel and resort, sports clubs and a medical center in Klebang are also part of the project.

Hesham al-Din Fathi, managing director of Saleh’s GCH company, said the project is bound to attract tourists from Arab countries who frequent Asian countries all year round, and spend an average of 10 times more than other tourists.

“Our targeted visitors will be Arabs and so we will embark on a major promotion in all Arab nations to tell them that they can visit the World Heritage City of Malacca and, at the same time, feel at home with the services, facilities and attractions at the Arab City,” Fathi explained.

Malaysian tourism reports show Arab tourists are increasingly seeking “halal tourism” in Malaysia among other Muslim Asian countries especially after Sept. 11, 2001 when more Arabs avoided western countries as a result of racial profiling.

The country’s tourism industry has seen a sharp rise in the number of big-spending tourists from the Middle East in recent years, attracted by the tropical country’s Islamic image.

Al-Arabiya