Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) president Praveen Chugh said the fourth travel agents convention will be held here from September six to nine and it will be the second time for the meet to be organised here after 1999. Last year more than 212,000 tourists came to London from India and spent £139m, overtaking spending by Japanese tourists (£123m) for the first time. Ms Ainsworth-Wells said: "If we succeed in winning the bid to host the convention, we could expect to see tourism from India grow by up to 30% in the years following." He told reporters here that before the 1999 TAFI convention, there were only 30,000 Indian tourist arrivals to Malaysia annually but following the convention and coupled with Tourism Malaysia’s aggressive promotion, their number increased to about 300,000 last year. He said TAFI has begun promoting the destinations and has been covering the destinations in the TAFI in-house newsletter that is widely circulated to all travel agents. Malaysia had always been a choice destination among Indian tourists, with Langkawi, Penang, Genting Highlands and Kuala Lumpur particularly popular. Chugh added that with India’s 13 per cent economic growth last year, TAFI expected the number of Indian nationals travelling to Malaysia to increase to 400,000 this year. India’s 13 per cent economic growth last year, TAFI expected the number of Indian nationals travelling to Malaysia to increase to 400,000 this year. "We anticipate that by bringing our own people here, we are trying to promote indirectly our base tourism destinations in India," he said. Meanwhile, Sabah Tourism Board Chairman Tengku Datuk Dr Zainal Adlin said the board as well as Tourism Malaysia would do their best to support the convention which augured well for the tourism industry in Sabah and Malaysia. He said both India and Malaysia had a lot of attractive tourism destinations and products to offer and it was hoped that the convention could boost the tourism industry of both countries. Various celebrations will be held throughout Malaysia, making 2007 one of the best times to visit the country. A major effort by the Ministry of Tourism to aggressively develop and market Malaysia as a preferred international destination, the campaign aims to generate over 20 million tourist arrivals in 2007.