Tourism Malaysia roadshow in India with MATTA
Tourism Malaysia kicks off its first roadshow in India this year, alongside with the Malaysian Association of Tour & Travel Agents (MATTA) across five cities from 30th January to 7th February 2023. The roadshow starts in the city of Chennai, followed by Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Ahmedabad.
The mission is led by Mr. Mohd Amirul Rizal Abdul Rahim, Senior Deputy Director of International Promotion (Asia & Africa) Tourism Malaysia, together with the Malaysian Association of Tour & Travel Agents (MATTA) and supported by 30 organisations, comprises a state tourism body, an airline, six (6) hotel/resort operators, twenty (20) travel agents and two (2) product owners.
The Malaysian sellers and Indian buyers participated in the business matching session and networking dinner, apart from seminars focusing on leisure and niche tourism markets such as meeting & incentives groups (MICE), wedding, golfing, and family fun activities.
India stands and has been one of the top market sources for Malaysia and has contributed 735,309 (+22.5%) arrivals and RM3.6 billion (+33.4%) tourism expenditure in 2019. Apart from its objective to ensure Malaysia remains to stand out on top of the minds among Indians, the roadshow aims to provide a platform for the industry community to steer the tourism sector to greater heights.
“The pandemic has been tremendously challenging for us, but ever since the reopening of our international border in April 2022, I am glad to let you know that we have welcomed more than 7 million international tourist arrivals in 2022. Hence, we are optimistic about achieving higher numbers in 2023 where we target to welcome 15.6 million international tourist arrivals with MYR47.6 billion in tourism receipts.”, said Dato’ Zainuddin Abdul Wahab, Director General of Tourism Malaysia.
He added, “Tourism Malaysia is ramping up its marketing efforts globally, including raising Malaysia’s profile in the India market. We do hope this market will continue to play the important role in getting this number”.
“MATTA has successfully organised sales missions to India since 2016, in order to collaborate with our counterparts and promote Malaysia following our recent tourist developments; we believed that this determination, accompanied by an effective promotional message, will improve the cross-promotional connection and create a stronger awareness of the India travel markets,” said MATTA President, Datuk Tan Kok Liang.
MATTA embarks on this continuous effort as an ideal venue for showcasing and promoting Malaysia’s new destinations and our multi-racial cultures, which will contribute to boost tourist arrivals from India while creating more business opportunities for the travel agent members.
India remains an important market for Malaysia. In terms of connectivity, there are currently 169 flights per week from India to Malaysia via Malaysia Airlines, Batik Air (formerly known as Malindo Air), AirAsia, and IndiGo.
Presently Malaysia has recently launched a new eVISA Multiple Entry Visa (MEV) facility consists of fly & cruise, wedding, medical treatment and business visitors purposes for Indian tourists that comes with a six-month validity, a 30-day length of stay (LOS) and costs only INR1,000.00. The visa can be applied online through this link.