KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – Tourism is expected to contribute about 12.5% to gross domestic product (GDP) next year, an improvement over the current contribution of nearly 12%, the Tourism and Culture Ministry said.

The jump in arrivals is partly due to the staging of the Visit Malaysia Year 2014 campaign, which is expected to bring in 28 million tourists and RM76 billion in revenue.

“The tourism sector is growing faster than the average growth of the economy, that means it will grow from 12% to 12.5% of GDP next year,” Ministry secretary general Datuk Dr Ong Hong Peng told reporters yesterday.

The ministry launched its integrated digital marketing programme in Kuala Lumpur yesterday that includes YouTube, web TVs, social media and other platforms.

In absolute terms, a 12.5% revenue from tourism would equal about RM125 billion coming into the government’s kitty. This is based on the country’s GDP in 2013, which is expected to reach over RM1 trillion.

Present at the launch was Tourism and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Aziz who said that the ministry is concentrating on all the areas around the world to translate the online visits to visit Malaysia website into footfalls.

“Traditionally China and India contribute the biggest to tourism, so we will pay attention to them as well,” said Mohamed Nazri.

He said eco-tourism which has attracted great interest from world travellers, will also be looked into for more promotion.

“For this, we have collaboration with the Fox channel while National Geographic have made some documentaries on our forests that will be aired next year,” he said.

Malaysia’s revenue from tourism rose about 9.6% to RM46.4 billion during the January- September period as compared to RM42.4 billion for the same period of 2012.

The Visit Malaysia Year will be launched by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Najib Razak on Jan 4 next year at Dataran Merdeka.