JOHOR BAHRU, Oct 31- Tourism Malaysia took an approach, in organising a midnight sale in Johor, starting yesterday, to encourage tourists from Singapore, to shop and spend the night in the state.

The Director General of Tourism Malaysia, Datuk P. Manoharan said, the approach is able to boost the tourism sector and at the same time, contribute to the national economy.

As of September, 6.9 million Singaporean tourists visited Johor, but most of them were daily visitors.

"So we together with the shopping complex here and Master Card also hold this midnight sales session so that more tourists can visit and also stay in hotels around JB... also need help from travel agencies like us to encourage special promotional activities for visitors from neighboring countries" said Datuk P. Manoharan, when met during the Malaysia Midnight Sale Shopping Campaign press conference, at a supermarket in Johor Bahru.

Tourism Malaysia had discussions with travel agencies, together with the state government and the management of the shopping complex, to further strengthen the initiative, towards achieving the target of 102.7 billion ringgit in tourism revenue for this year.

Datuk P. Manoharan also informed that the midnight sale will be extended to Melaka, on a date to be determined, due to an encouraging response received from visitors who came from outside Johor Bahru.