KUALA LUMPUR – It cost RM498,347 to sponsor Chinese actress Fan Bingbing as a Melaka tourism ambassador, but the state government only spent about 16% of the total.
Melaka Tourism, Heritage, Art and Culture exco Datuk Abdul Razak Abdul Rahman said the state spent RM77,850, while the rest was covered by private sponsors.
“The RM77,850 only includes the cost of promotion and organising the programme in Melaka, while the remainder sponsored by several private companies was for flights, accommodation, transportation, professional service costs and mapping at Encore Melaka,” Bernama reported him saying.
Razak was speaking in the Melaka state assembly sitting today in answer to a question by Dr Mohd Aleef Yusof (Sg Udang-Bersatu), who wanted to know the cost incurred by the state government in appointing Fan as the state’s tourism ambassador.
Fan, who is promoting the state in conjunction with Visit Melaka Year 2024, was spotted dressed in a nyonya kebaya at the historic Stadthuys building last month, with netizen’s photos of her going viral. She also appeared at various other tourism and heritage sites.
Razak said Melaka would benefit from having Fan as a state tourism ambassador because of her wide social media reach, with 26 million followers.
He said while Fan was in Melaka for three days last month, there were 1.2 billion online searches about her, while information about the state was searched for 445 million times during the same period.
“This is a high return to the state government for a low cost,” he said.
Fan also has 63 million followers on Weibo (a social media platform in China similar to X) and 4.1 million Instagram followers.
In addition to Chinese films, she has also starred in the Hollywood superhero film X-Men: Days of Future Past, as well as French and Korean films.
In 2017, Fan graced the cover of Time magazine and was also named on its list of 100 Most Influential People, and was the highest-paid Chinese actress for a period. – July 9, 2024