Labuan: Cuti-Cuti Malaysia (CCM) introduced two years ago to promote domestic tourism is turning out to be a big hit among Malaysians due to the varied and affordable prices offered under the CCM.

Giving figures to support the rising popularity of CCM packages, Sabah's Director of Malaysian Tourism Promotion Board, Edzuar Zar Ayod Azari said, "were the CCM packages were started in 2000, 22 roadshows were held and some RM284,000 travel packages were sold.

Last year sales jumped to RM 1.8 million during the 48 roadshows held selling 8, 188 packages."

Edzuar said that due to the exceptional response from the market "even those tour and travel operations were initially reluctant to participate, were now also interested in getting a bite of the local market as foreign tourism became uncertain tourism became uncertain following the 911 incident."

Speaking at a press conference at the Tourism Malaysia Office here, Edzuar said "with greater participantion of local tourism-related companies the packages available during the CCM roadshows would likely be more interesting and attractive."

The Labuan CCM roadshow would be held this Saturday and Sunday at the foyer of the Financial Park and some 20 companies have registered to take part.

Edzuar said that following the launching of the CCM here it would also be launched later in other towns "and this time we plan to cover more areas including smaller towns like Kudat and Keningau."

On Labuan tourism, Edzuar said that the Tourism office here was now getting more inquiries.
He said last year 4,092 visited the office to get information of places of interest.

He also said that presently many who came here were to participate in events, or to relax and enjoy duty - free shopping, some also came to visit.