THE PUTERI Harbour Family Theme Park in Nusajaya, Johor is due to open its doors in mid-November.

Situated within the Puteri Harbour waterfront development that is scheduled to launch next January (TTG Asia e-Daily, July 25, 2012), the four-storey indoor theme park will house LAT’s Place, a restaurant that will bring the Malaysian cartoonist’s famed village boy character to life, and the first-ever Hello Kitty theme park outside of Japan.

Themed Attractions & Resorts (TAR), a subsidiary of the Malaysian government's investment arm Khazanah Nasional, has poured in over RM100 million (US$32 million) to develop the new theme park.

TAR managing director & CEO, Ahmad Burhanuddin, told TTG Asia e-Daily that he sees the Puteri Harbour Family Theme Park complementing, rather than competing with Legoland Malaysia, which is due to open in Nusajaya in mid-September. 

“Both theme parks combined will give tourists a reason to spend more than a day in Nusajaya,” he said.

“Families will have more things to do at the destination, so they (will) have more reasons to stay longer and spend more in Malaysia.”

TAR is targeting 500,000 visitors in the theme park’s first year of operations. Marketing efforts will be conducted together with Tourism Malaysia in key markets such as India, China and the Middle East.