More public relations (PR) exercises will be carried out by Tourism Malaysia in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong to gain the confidence of the citizens of the three Chinese-speaking countries to visit Malaysia.

Tourism Minister Datuk Dr Leo Michael Toyad said that although the government was confident that the volume of tourist arrivals would increase and reach the targeted 17.3 million next year, there was a slight fall from these three countries after the ear squat incident.

We can get an increase in all (market groups) and of course this year we had a fall in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong but the rest all positive.

He told reporters this after the annual Tourism Malaysia Overseas Director`s meeting here to discuss the performance and future strategies of Tourism Malaysia`s overseas stations to promote Malaysia as a reliable tourist destination.

He said the first stage to study the impact of a women forced to do ear squats at a police station was been carried out by the ministry led by his deputy, Datuk Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.

The woman, who was thought to be a Chinese national, was later identified in an independent inquiry as a local Malay woman.

Dr Toyad said he was confident of achieving the target of 16.4 million tourists this year based on the 4.3 per cent increase of tourist arrivals last September.

With the launch of Visit Malaysia Year 2007 by Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak tomorrow, we hope to attract at least 20.1 million tourists, he said.

He said Tourism Malaysia was also looking seriously at developing new market potential like Indochina, Iran, Pakistan, the fomer Soviet Union countries and North Africa.