Dato Mirza Mohammad Taiyab Beg, Director General of Tourism Malaysia, shares his views on the marketing of destinations and the testing of traditional cultures in the face of development.

Besides creating awareness how else does Malaysia promote tourism?
We are here in India and Nepal to promote the \'Malaysia Truly Asia Kitchen\' to wind the hearts and minds and stomachs.

Marketing campaigns are important, but it doesn't end at communications. We have to be ready to receive people on our side. If we campaign well, and people visit Malaysia and see it isn't as nice as they think, we haven't really been successful. If people visit and they go back speaking well about the place, it's good news. In fact, word-of-mouth is more effective than any publicity materials. If they go back disappointed it renders the publicity campaign useless. The important thing is to tell the truth.

For example, we say that Malaysia is affordable, which is true. People come here for hotels that are cheap yet have five-star standards.

How can tourism development make sure that indigenous cultures do not get displaced?
Indigenous cultures will be constantly threatened if you don't protect them. There's a need to make sure that various ethnicities are not disregarded. Also, it depends on what is strong and what is not. If you're strong, any kind of temptation is not a problem. Protection is only effective to a certain degree. Let these indigenous cultures be tested, allow them to grow in strength. Let's talk about cultural performances around the world today that used to be traditions. What brings them up on stage again is the tourism industry.

Wherever you go, if there are tourists, old things get revived again. It's easy to blame tourism for allowing foreign influences into a local culture, but look at television and the mass media - these penetrate even more. Everybody watches TV all the time for four to five hours a day. Also consider festivals, which are a positive way of presenting a country. If you don't have festivals, how can you speak about culture? It's just like plants - if you have no flowers, how can you differentiate the plants? Festivals are the flowers of every culture.

Will Malaysia's tourism board strive to develop eco-tourism?
Any projects made in Malaysia that involve development are done according to strict adherence to environmental standards. Eco-tourism is very much crucial to the survival of the tourism industry, you need to protect and sustain first in order to promote growth. There's no such thing as introducing eco-tourism, it has always been there and it will only be more and more important from now on.

What is going to be critical in tourism development in Asia in the future?
Technology is an important aspect in tourism development. Look at Singapore - it has 4 to 5 million people but 10 million tourists. That's because the country utilises a lot of technology to draw people and to make things easy and smooth. If you have to handle things manually, it's impossible and you won't see a fast turnover.