Hotmail Founder to get married in Langkawi

Hotmail Founder, Sabeer Bhatia would be getting married in Langkawi Island on March 9. This is definitely a great news for our tourism industry, where his wedding in Langkawi would bring upon attention from around the world.

As a Malaysian, this would be a great boost to the image of Malaysia. And who knows, Sabeer would get the chance to take a peek at our General Election, which is expected to happen then too!

Quoted in full from Bernama
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Hotmail Founder Sabeer To Marry In Exotic Langkawi

By P. Vijian

NEW DELHI, Feb 6 (Bernama) -- Hotmail founder, Indian-born Sabeer Bhatia, who became an overnight millionaire after selling his web-based e-mail service to Microsoft, plans to get hitched in Langkawi Island next month.

Sabeer, 40, chose Langkawi as his preferred venue to wed Tania Sharma, on March 9, and dignitaries from far and wide are expected to bless the marriage at the Taj Rebak Marina Resort located on the world famous island.

"We wanted an exclusive island for the wedding. Sabeer wanted to have it in Hawaii but it would be too far for our guests. We were thinking of Phuket, Bangkok or Koh Samui (Thailand) but decided on Langkawi," R.K. Sharma, the father of the bride-to-be, told Bernama.

About 270 dignitaries including bigwigs like Indian steel king Lakshmi Mittal's brother Pramod Mittal and India's Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel are on the guest list.

"Langkawi is an exclusive island and we have booked the entire hotel for our guests. The event is for two days, the first day is for the sangeet ceremony (pre-wedding ceremony of dance and music) and the wedding is on March 9th," added Sharma.

The Langkawi cable car is also said to have been booked for two hours on March 9 for the wedding party, where the guests will be entertained by musicians, deejays, and singers specially flown in from India.

The computer wizard, who sold Hotmail for a whopping US$400 million in 1997, just before his 30th birthday, was once engaged to a US-based Indian corporate lawyer in 2004 but the three-month engagement fell apart.

Sabeer, the son of a military officer, was born in Chandigarh, Punjab and graduated from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science in India and later completed his Masters programme in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University.

Sabeer got engaged to Tania, a Mumbai-based businesswoman and the heiress of the Baidyanath Group, one of the largest manufacturers of ayurvedic medicine in India, last December.

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Visit Malaysia Year 2007

Visit Malaysia Year 2007 came to almost a close now, with 2007 almost ends.

What is the outcome of VMY2007? The target set was 20.1 Million visitors for 2007, and with 1 more week to go, Malaysia has attracted a total of 20.7 Million visitors. Looks like we are going to end 2007 with 21 Million visitors.

That is a huge number of tourists. Essentially, for every 1 Malaysian, we attracted 0.8 foreign tourists who came to visit Malaysia, be it on a day trip, or a lengthy month-long vacation.

Coincidentally, as I was watching Channel News Asia here in Singapore, Singapore has just received its 10th Million visitor of the year. So, now, Singapore has also crossed their milestone of 10 Million tourists a year, in a tiny island.

Are we doing better? Would both the countries be able to synergize effort to bring more tourists?

Lets hope we are able to do so!

To all foreign tourists, we welcome you with open arms - Selamat Datang!

Mickey Mouse Land

Disney, the name synonymous with Mickey Mouse, has been a household name around the world.

Hong Kong Disneyland which was opened in 2006, had another bad year for 2007. Total visitors to Disneyland was a total of 5 million for the first year, and it dropped to slightly more than 4 million for the year of 2007.

Would 2008 continue to see a drop in total visits? This is quite a serious issues, especially with Billions being pumped in for the Disneyland in Hong Kong.

Would Disney be viable for the opening at Iskandar Development Region? Would it bring the necessary crowd? Would it be profitable? Would our local government's investment be too much in it, and eventually needed a bail out?

Can Disney even outperform Genting at the very basic? How about Universal at the Genting Integrated Resort? Can they do better?

A lot of questions, and all these investments would have to see whether the market here is ready.