Malaysia's Tourism Minister Ng Yen Yen will on Sunday start her first official visit to Russia to promote her country as a tourist destination, the Moscow-based Malaysian tourism department office reported.
The weeklong visit will start in the Far East, then continue in Siberia and end in Moscow on August 27. Meetings with Russian governors and travel industry workers are on the visit agenda.
The Far East and Siberia are the key sources of tourism for southeast Asian countries like Thailand. However, the number of Russian tourists visiting Malaysia is small, which Yen hopes to change.
In the first three months of 2011, the number of Russian tourists going to Malaysia totaled 12,400, which is a 27% increase year on year. Overall, in January-March the country was visited by 5.5 million of foreign tourists, a 3.7% increase on the same period last year.
