Nation Ranked 35th In Global Popularity

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia ranked 35 out of 40 countries in the Anholt National Brands Index, which measures what people worldwide think about the country.

The top five for the first quarter of 2007 comprised Britain, Germany, Canada, France, and Switzerland while Israel, Indonesia and Iran formed the bottom three.

Brand specialist Simon Anholt said the index was derived from a quarterly quantitative survey conducted in 20 to 35 countries from 2005 to 2007.

The survey took into account six aspects: exports, governance, culture and heritage, people, tourism and immigration/investment.“The index reflects what people around the world think about Malaysia and other countries, and not what I think about them. “It is not a survey of (the quality of) Malaysian exports but how people perceive Malaysian products,” he said at the Meeting of Minds conference.

Anholt said that Malaysia had slipped 2.1% in the survey from 2005 to 2007 and, more shockingly, ranked second from bottom behind Iran in the culture category.

From: The Star, 29th June 2008

Alas... Again a great failure of Malaysia tourism. Its been more than 20 years the Tourism Ministy was set up. Its very unfortunate that again and again this bad news is haunting us in the tourism sector.

As tour guides, I am sure most of you know that when the tourists first come to Malaysia, they know nothing about our country. And infact, most of the tourists will only come to Malaysia after visiting either Thailand or Singapore or both. By the time they come to our country, their money become lesser as they have spent a great amount either in Thailand or Singapore.

After visiting and staying in Malaysia, the tourists began to understand about Malaysia through the tour guides. And from here on, you will began to hear how WONDERFUL AND BEAUTIFUL Malaysia is. Even some of the tourists will come to you and admit to you that should they did not come to Malaysia, they had the impression that Malaysia is a very poor and backward nation.

Our former PM, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohd. realised the importance of putting Malaysia's name in the international circle had tried very hard by building a lot of international and mega projects in Malaysia for example, the KLCC, KL Tower, F1 Circuit, KLIA, etc but it is very unfortunate that right up till this day we still come across such a report.

It really breaks my heart to hear such a bad report about Malaysia. I really hope that the Tourism Ministry will work extra hard to promote Malaysia to the international people. And as for Malaysians, please be well aware that we can also contribute in any way to boost the name sake of Malaysia to the international people.