KOCHI:
Malaysia kicked off the much anticipated Visit Malaysia 2020 campaign, in a roadshow with MATTA (Malaysian Association of Tour & Travel Agents) covering Four cities of South India -namely Chennai, Madurai, Coimbatore and Kochi from 23 rd to 26 th September 2019.
The Consul General of Malaysia, SaravananKarathihayan, MohamadTaib Ibrahim, Senior Director of Tourism Malaysia, Datuk Tan Kok Liang, President of MATTA (Malaysian Association of Tour & Travel Agents), Logi DhasanThanaraj, Deputy Director of Tourism Malaysia for South India and SriLanka, Gopalan Mariappan, Chairman of Selangor Chapter for MATTA and many other dignitaries gracefully launched the roadshow in Ramada Plaza, Chennai which welcomes the biggest tourism event in Malaysia, starting next year.
A total number of 27 participants from Malaysia, comprising a combination of 21-travel agents, 3 product owners, Seri Pacific Hotel Kuala Lumpur, Malindo Air and Sarawak Tourism Board will come together to share the latest development of Malaysian tourism, and to promote the Visit Malaysia 2020 campaign aggressively. The aim is to provide a platform for Malaysian sellers to meet potential buyers besides enhancing strategic networking with travel agencies, online travel agencies, tourism associations and the media.
The Consul General of Malaysia, SaravananKarathihayan stated, “The VM2020 roadshow puts emphasis on India as one of the main potential market for the country. In 2018, 600,311 (+8.6%) Indian tourists visited Malaysia and spent almost RM 2.7 billion. Statistic from January until June 2019 show that a total of 354,486 with the growth of 15.2% Indian visited Malaysia compared to same period last year. For the record, Malaysia is aiming a target of 728,000 Indian tourists to visit Malaysia, assisted by three Tourism Malaysia offices in Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai.”
“Tourism in Malaysia is doing well with steady arrivals and tourism development”, stated Muhammad Taib Ibrahim. International tourist arrivals from January to June showed a +4.9% positive growth from 12,730,368 (2018) to 13,354,575. Top ten international tourist arrivals for the first half of 2019 were from Singapore (5,381,566), Indonesia (1,857,864), China (1,558,782), Thailand (990,565), Brunei (627,112), India (354,486), South Korea (323,952), Philippines (210,974), Vietnam (200,314) and Japan (196,561).ASEAN arrivals continued to dominate the share of tourist arrivals to Malaysia with a 70% contribution. The medium-haul market and long-haul market occupied a 21% share and a 9% share respectively.Overall, the performance of the short-haul, medium-haul and long-haul markets registered positive increase with 4.7%, 7.1% and 1.8% growth respectively compared to the first half of 2018.“In terms of visa, the Malaysian government always facilitates Indian tourists’ entry with ease, since the
introduction of eNTRI and eVISa,” he added.
Ibrahim reiterated that Malaysia is going full-force in reaching out to the world using the help of the web. “The campaign’s focus is on digital marketing through a dedicated VM2020 website, the use of hashtags for VisitMalaysia2020, VM2020 and MalaysiaTrulyAsia,” he added.
International tourism fairs’ participation as well as Mega Familiarisationprogrammesare already in place, as Malaysia hopes to reach Indian solo or business travelers, families, honeymooners, or film makers to choose Malaysia as a preferred destination. Many development took place from south to north of Malaysia, in addition to Borneo’s wonderful natural landscape. For instance, in state of Johor, there are new attractions in Desaru Coast – an integrated beach destination spanning 3,900 acres where tourists can enjoy golfing at the renowned Els Club, stay in Hard Rock, the Westin or other beach hotels, or have fun at the water theme park with one of the biggest wave pools in the world! In latest addition, the interactive sea aquarium in Legoland Malaysia, the Sea Life has some 13,000 fishes and 120 types of species on display.
More fun await families or thrill-seekers, as many new indoor entertainment parks are booming, like Superpark in Avenue K, My Best Box in Berjaya Times Square, Futureland Fun Zone in Sunway Pyramid, and VR’s hotspot the Rift in Mid Valley Mega Mall and Skytropolis in Genting.
Dato KL TAN, President of MATTA stated that, “ MATTA is covering the potential tourists rich cities of Chennai, Madurai, Coimbatore and Kochi through the MTEX (MATTA Travel Exchange) a trade event designed for Malaysian inbound tourism players to sell and market Malaysian tourism products to counterparts in India and establish business networking and partnerships for better business working conditions to entice more tourists to choose Malaysia as their next holiday destination”.
LogiDhasanThanaraj, Deputy Director of Tourism Malaysia (South India & SriLanka) stated that, “International tourism fairs’ participation as well as Mega Familiarization programs were already in place, as Malaysia hopes to reach the film makers, the students market and Wedding planners to choose Malaysia as the preferred destination”.
“Apart from the traditional areas of growth, MATTA continues to focus on digital by encouraging more of its members to move into the e-commerce space and offer digital alternatives when buying and selling tourism products and services” as stated by Gopalan Mariappan, Chairman of Selangor Chapter for MATTA. For VM2020, Malaysia targets 30 million international tourist arrivals and RM 100 billion in receipts.
