Audit: Tourism Ministry still owes RM107m for advertising, its promos under scrutiny
Monday, 02 Dec 20195:20 PM MYT
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KUALA LUMPUR: The Tourism, Arts and Culture Ministry still owes RM107mil for advertising and digital campaigns between 2016 and last year, states the Auditor-General's Report 2018.
“A total of 32 procurement for advertising campaigns, totalling RM136.67mil involving 16 suppliers for the period 2016 to 2018, were approved although there was no allocation, ” the audit report stated.
The advertising and digital promotion campaigns were targeted for markets in Asian region, including Japan, Taiwan, Korea and China.
“Of the 404 promotion programmes planned for 2016 to 2018, only 196 programmes (48.5%) were carried out while 208 (51.5%) programmes were not implemented, ” it added.
The audit also discovered that 231 unplanned promotion programmes were however held.
Tourist arrivals between 2016 and last year had dropped between 570,000 (2.2%) and 5.85 million (18.4%) from the targeted arrivals.
Foreign tourist spending, the report stated, also saw a reduction by as much as RM765mil (0.2%) and up to RM35.835bil (30.4%) from the projected target between 2016 and 2018.
“Due to this, Malaysia was unable to retain its standing of top 10 ranking under the UN World Trade Organisation,” added the report, which was tabled in Parliament on Monday (Dec 2).
The target for foreign tourist spending in 2016 was RM130bil, RM118bil for 2017 and RM84.9bil for 2018.
Read more at https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2019/12/02/auditor-generals-report-tourism-ministry-still-owes-rm107m-for-advertising-its-promos-under-scrutiny#vpg6zKLD5TaAAGcQ.99
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