The Hon. Deputy Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture, Mr. Muhammad Bakhtiar bin Wan Chik, presented 38 awards at tonight’s Appreciation Awards to partners of Tourism Malaysia in India for their strong and continuous support for the growth and development of the Malaysian tourism industry.
The Appreciation Night, held at The Shangri-La’s Eros Hotel on the eve of SATTE (South Asia Travel & Tourism Exchange), was attended by presidents of the tourism associations – TAAI, TAFI and OTOAI, and representatives from major travel agencies, tour operators, online travel agencies, airlines, media, wedding planners, MICE curators along with 40 participants from Malaysia, comprising a mix of DMCs, hotels, airlines, attractions, and suppliers.
The High Commissioner of Malaysia to India, H.E Dato’ Hidayat Abdul Hamid, Director of International Promotion Division Tourism Malaysia, Mr. Mohamad Taib Ibrahim and other Malaysian dignitaries were also present to show their appreciation to India’s tourism industry fraternity.
Tourism Malaysia also took the opportunity to update the India travel trade members of Malaysia’s tourism developments and launch the new Visit Malaysia 2020 promotional video called Breathtaking Malaysia.
The Deputy Minister thanked all the stakeholders who played a crucial role in driving arrivals to Malaysia in 2019. “India has always been a very important tourism source market for Malaysia. From January to September 2019, Indian arrivals to Malaysia grew by 23.2% year on year. This put India in sixth place in terms of arrivals to Malaysia,” he said.
“Tourism Malaysia, in its commitment to developing India as a stronger tourist source market got its biggest ever contingent of participants for SATTE, comprising a total of 40 participants with 13 travel agents, 14 hotels and resorts, seven product owners, three airlines, two state agencies and one Online Travel Agent (OTA)” he added.
The Visit Malaysia 2020 campaign is targeted at achieving 30 million tourist arrivals with 1 million arrivals from India.
