After a glitzy multi-million dollar campaign to attract holidaymakers for Malaysia's 50th year of nationhood, so many have turned up that the tourism minister last week resorted to telling tour operators to "cool off".

"The numbers are amazing," says Katie Hoo, communications director for Hotel Nikko in Kuala Lumpur.

"This is our best performance since we set up here in 1996. We had to push away many bookings to our sister hotel at the other side of town, but sometimes even they cannot accommodate the bookings."

At the fully-booked Andaman Langkawi Resort, a spokesperson called this an "exceptional year" for business.

The figures are good news for the Malaysian government, which has been struggling to compete for the tourist dollar with neighbouring Thailand and shopping hub Singapore.

After spending 200 million ringgit ($57-million) on the Visit Malaysia 2007 campaign, expectations in the government are high. The marketing blitz aims to bring 20.1 million tourists and 44.5 billion ringgit into the nation this year — up from 17.5 million visitors in 2006.

So far, the immigration ministry has reported more than 13.5 million tourist arrivals, bringing with them almost 23 billion ringgit.

Marketing money well-spent

Tourism Minister Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor said he expected the figures to be even higher, with at least 24 million holidaymakers by the end of the year.

"Some questioned our move of pouring a lot of money into the tourism industry, but our plan has worked and Visit Malaysia Year is a grand, grand success," Tengku Adnan told AFP.

But where to put all of the tourists remains a problem. Most hotels in Kuala Lumpur, the resort island of Langkawi and other tourist favourites like Kota Kinabalu and Penang are almost fully booked until October.

"It was an impromptu decision to come here, but it turned out to be a tough one as I spent almost one day before getting a place to stay," said Jadeen Jucipher, a Mauritian who arrived in Kuala Lumpur last week.

He finally found a bed in Chinatown, but bemoaned the traffic jams caused by preparations for the independence day anniversary on Thursday this week.

Tourists staying for longer

"I happened to hear that Malaysia was gearing up for a grand independence day celebration this month, and I just wanted to see how it's done in this part of the world," Jadeen said.

Many tourists enjoyed Malaysia so much they decided to stay longer, a trend the tourism ministry said is causing the hotel room shortage.

Samiellah Al-Jaber and Aymen Al Masrahi, banking employees from Saudi Arabia, described their trip as fantastic: "So good that we decided to extend the stay here by another week," Samiellah said.

Ivo R. Nekvapil, vice president of the Malaysian Association of Hotels, said many holidaymakers have been enticed by the government campaign and have timed their visit to catch this week's 50th birthday show.

"That push is like getting a train started and now it is running very well," he told AFP, adding that an increase in conferences and events had also helped push tourist numbers up.

However there have been some disappointments. Manchester United had to cancel plans to play a match to celebrate the 50th anniversary because Malaysia was an Asian Cup host and had promised not to stage any other games.

But Nekvapil said there should be no more disappointments for holidaymakers. And he said the shortage of hotel rooms has been overplayed. Although people may not be able to get into their first choice of hotel or location, he said: "I don't think anyone is going to miss out at all."

AFP