IPOH: The implementation of Visit Perak Year 2024 (TMP2024) starting on Monday (Jan 1) will not be affected even though the number of COVID-19 cases has been increasing across the country recently.

State Tourism, Industry, Investment and Corridor Development Committee chairman Loh Sze Yee said he was confident that the Ministry of Health (MOH) has made efforts to stop the epidemic from spreading further.

"Various measures to prevent COVID-19 are already in place such as face masks, keeping a safe distance from others in public and so on, which we have been observing till now. I also believe that most tourists have already been vaccinated.

"However, we (the state government) will continue to comply with the guidelines and standard operating procedures set by the MOH to curb the spread of COVID-19 in tourist hotspots," he said after launching the state's tourism website in Chinese, 'Perak GoGoGo' at the main hall of the Perak Darul Ridzuan Building here today.

A total of 120 events are listed in the Perak tourism calendar to enliven TMP2024, with district, state and international level activities carried out in collaboration with local authorities, non-governmental organisations and various associations.

In another development, Loh said the state was trying to establish a direct flight route from Ipoh to China to attract more inbound tourists to fly to Perak.

"When Sultan Azlan Shah Airport has direct international flights from China, it will be a breeze for Chinese tourists to travel here. So, we are working towards that, otherwise, it will be a constraint for us to attract as many tourists as possible," he said.

The media previously reported that Perak is targeting the entry of eight million domestic tourists and 350,000 tourists from abroad to visit the state in conjunction with TMP2024.

Meanwhile, Loh said the Chinese-language state tourism website 'Perak GoGoGo' was created as an initiative to attract more tourists, especially from China, in conjunction with TMP2024.

"We already have many state tourism websites that use the Malay language, but we are making this effort to empower the local tourism sector by focusing on the Chinese language market," he said.

The website initiative was held through collaboration with Media Chinese International Limited Group (MCIL) which involved the participation of local and international Chinese-language newspapers.

In addition to pictures and short articles about places and tourism products in Perak, the Perak GoGoGo website also contains tourism videos with Ipoh as the main focus and other must-visit destinations.

-- BERNAMA