Malaysia kicked off the much anticipated VisitMalaysia 2020 campaign, in a roadshow covering three main cities of India, namely Amritsar, Mumbai & Hyderabad from 22nd to 25th July 2019. Mr. Sulaiman Bin Suip, Director, Tourism Malaysia launched the roadshow in Hyatt Regency Hotel, Amritsar which welcomed the biggest tourism event in Malaysia, starting next year.
A total number of 37 participants from Malaysia comprising a combination of 18-travel agents, 4-product owners, 9- hotels, 3 airlines and 3 others combine together to share the latest development of Malaysian tourism, and also to announce the Visit Malaysia year in 2020.
The VM2020 roadshow emphasizes India as 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 May 2019 show that a total of 295,609 with the growth of 15.5% Indian visited Malaysia compared to same period last year. For record, Malaysia is aiming a target of 728,000 Indian tourists to visit Malaysia, assisted by three Tourism Malaysia’s offices in Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai.
Tourism in Malaysia is doing well with good arrivals and tourism development, stated Mr Sulaiman. International tourist arrivals from January to May showed a +4.8% positive growth from 10,545,447 (2018) to 10,954,014. Both short (ASEAN) and medium haul markets were the strong performers with increment of +4.7% and +7.6% arrivals respectively. Meanwhile, the long haul market saw a slight decline in arrivals (-0.2%) due to limited direct flights.
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.
“In term of visa, the Malaysian government always facilitates Indian tourists’ entry at ease, since the introduction of eNTRI and eVISA,” he added.
Mr Sulaiman 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.
Recognizing the importance of digital marketing, Tourism Malaysia had also engaged with a group of more than 50 social media influencers from India attending the recent Digital Influencer Convention 2019 in Sabah. A competition was held for them to post about Malaysia on their social media platforms utilizing the hashtags.
International tourism fairs’ participation as well as Mega Familiarization programmes are 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.
For VM2020, Malaysia targets 30 million international tourist arrivals and RM 100 billion in receipts.
