A Night at the Museum, Smart Little Professor, and Minions Hours … no, we’re not referring to movies. But rather, these are some of the newly-launched Malaysia 101 Edutourism Packages by the Higher Education and Tourism Ministry to promote Malaysia and its culture to both local and international travellers in conjunction with Higher Education Week Malaysia.
Higher Education deputy minister Datuk Mary Yap Kain Ching said that these packages are in line with Malaysia Festival 2015 where the Tourism and Culture Ministry is targeting 29.4 million foreign tourists and 63.7 million domestic tourists who are expected to generate an estimated revenue of RM89bil and RM63.7mil respectively for the country.
“I believe that tourism products that are more focused on education have the ability to draw tourists from all over the world,” she said when officiating the launch. “The Malaysia 101 Edutourism Packages will not only benefit the universities and travel agencies, but also local business owners who will reap the benefits from tourist expenditure,” she added.
One of the skeleton exhibits at the animal anatomy museum at Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM)’s Edu-Park. Photo: The Star/Shaari Chemat
One of the skeleton exhibits at the animal anatomy museum at Universiti Putra Malaysia’s Edu-Park. Filepic
Tourism Malaysia and 20 local travel agencies have visited nine universities and conducted package development workshops there. The result is the 149 packages in the Malaysia 101 Edutourism Packages booklet. Tourism Malaysia has also published Cuti-Cuti 1Malaysia 1001 Packages in conjunction with Visit Malaysia Year 2014, and the sales from the packages last year amounted to RM23mil.
For instance, Universiti Putra Malaysia currently offers visitors eight edutourism locations, including Putra Dairy farm, Deer Farm, the Equine Centre, Conservatory Park, Animal Anatomy Museum, Human Anatomy Museum, Serdang Gallery and Malay Heritage Museum.
