Malaysia backs Islamic tourism event

September 28, 2010 by TTRweekly Staff

BANGKOK, 28 September 2010 – Islamic Tourism Conference & Travel Mart 2010 is scheduled for 28 to 31 October at the Putra World Trade Centre, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

ITCM 2010 is an annual event, organised by Islamic Tourism Centre and endorsed by Ministry of Tourism of Malaysia. This year, the event will address the theme “Harvesting the Potential of Intra-Regional Islamic Travel & Tourism.”

 

There are two main event zones – an International Islamic tourism conference (28 to 29 October) and the travel mart (30 to 31 October.) The first is limited to trade visitors only while the mart is open to the general public.

The objective is to create a B2B platform for networking and improve sales for Islamic travel and tourism suppliers.

In an official statement the organisers said the event would encourage the “convergence of viewpoints from the academic perspectives and business aspects of tourism” that could be harnessed to benefit Muslim travellers

The mart should attract 200 exhibition booths, 100 foreign travel trade buyers and 200 conference participants.


Apart from participation from local tourism and travel trade industry players and state governments another eight countries will be represented. They are: Saudi Arabia; Brunei Darussalam; Azerbaijan; Indonesia; Egypt; Oman; Iran and South Africa.

Space Travel for US$200,000 a ticket

KUALA LUMPUR, 28 September 2010 – Billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson said Monday that Virgin Galactic is on track to offer commercial space travel within 18 months, and that space hotels are next on the drawing board.

The project’s SpaceshipTwo, an aircraft built by aviation engineer Burt Rutan and designed to carry paying customers into suborbital space, had its maiden flight in the California desert in March.

“We just finished building SpaceShipTwo. We are 18 months away from taking people into space,” Branson told a business conference in Kuala Lumpur, adding that the fare will start at US$200,000.

Virgin Galactic, which aims to become the world’s first commercial company to promote space tourism, has already collected US$45 million in deposits from more than 330 people who have reserved seats aboard the six-person craft.

Branson also has visions of establishing hotels in space, which well-heeled tourists can use as a base for shuttle flights over the moon.

“We are looking at hotels in space. We love the moon,” the tycoon said, adding that he was also interested in launching “small satellites into space” for the benefit of schools and universities.

Under Branson’s brainchild scheme, the SpaceshipTwo craft is to be launched into space with the help of mothership White Knight Two (WK2).

WK2 will carry SpaceshipTwo to an altitude of around 16 kilometres before dropping the smaller spaceship and allowing it to fire up its rocket motor to blast up to the brink of space.

Once it has reached suborbital space, SpaceShipTwo passengers will be able to view the Earth from portholes next to their seats, or unbuckle their seatbelts and float in zero gravity.

Meanwhile, in a more down-to-earn business, Branson has a 20% in Malaysia-based long-haul budget carrier AirAsia X which flies to Asia and Europe.