Malaysian hotels slowdown

Malaysian hotels slowdown

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters): Malaysian hotels have reported a 7.3 percent drop in the number of room nights in the first quarter of this year due to fewer arrivals of Asian tourists, a minister said.

Malaysia's Culture, Arts and Tourism Minister Sabbaruddin Chik said foreign tourists spent some 3.26 million nights in hotels in January-March 1998 against 3.53 million in the same 1997 period.

The national Bernama news agency quoted Sabbaruddin as saying late on Saturday that the sharp depreciation in most Asian currencies had curtailed Asian travel.

He said arrivals from Thailand and Indonesia had dropped 30 percent each, the number of Japanese tourists declined 17 percent while there were virtually no visitors from South Korea.

But the number of tourists from the Britain and the United States increased.