TOURISM MALAYSIA BOOSTS PUBLICITY FOR VM2020 IN INDIA

by Suman Gupta

MUMBAI,  FEBRUARY 2020: With the target of welcoming 1 million tourist arrivals from India, Malaysia is gearing up its promotion for Visit Malaysia 2020 (VM2020) campaign at the Outbound Travel Mart (OTM) from 3 to 5 February 2020 at the Bombay Exhibition Centre, Mumbai.

As one of the leading travel shows held annually in India, OTM serves as a marketing platform that allows trade partners and tourists to showcase and obtain information on the latest products and offerings in the tourism sector. This year’s OTM is estimated to bring in 1,000 exhibitors from 55 countries, where they will be engaging with approximately 800 buyers and 15,000 trade visitors.

Led by Mr Zulkifly Md Said, the Deputy Director General (Planning) of Tourism Malaysia, the delegation from Malaysia this year includes 14 organisations from the Malaysian travel industry who will be offering special packages for 2020. The organisations consist of Malaysia Airlines, Langkawi Development Authority (LADA), 8 travel agents, 3 hotels and Window Malaysia, as the official eVisa provider for Malaysian government and one stop online platform.

“India remains one of the top market sources for Malaysia and we hope that more Indian tourists would take the advantage to visit Malaysia as we have many exciting events such as Rainforest World Music Festivals (10^th – 12^th July) , Royal Floria  Putrajaya ( 15^th – 23^rd August), lined up in conjunction with VM2020,” said Mr. Zulkifly who urged tourists to check Malaysia’s Calendar of Events for 2020 available on the official website at http://vm2020.malaysia.travel/.

In line with Malaysia’s commitment to sustainable tourism, the launch of VM2020 campaign at the Malaysian Pavillion at OTM this year will highlight themes of eco and nature. Riding on the waves of the niche segments that are on the rise in Malaysia, Tourism Malaysia will be pushing more of these products and hold seminars on tourism products and hospitality, filming destinations and weddings. In order to facilitate networking between buyers and sellers, Tourism Malaysia will coordinate B2B meetings as part of the programme.

With the allowance of visa-free entry for tourists from India for up to 15 days by the government, Malaysia hopes to see further growth in the number of arrivals from India, which is currently the sixth largest source of travellers with 600,311 arrivals in 2018, and 615,296 upto the period of January to October 2019. Malaysia is increasing its promotional efforts in order to meet the targets set for VM2020 to bring in 30 million tourist arrivals and RM100 billion in tourist receipts.

MALAYSIA TOURISM PROMOTION BOARD OR TOURISM MALAYSIA is an agency under the Ministry of Tourism, Arts & Culture Malaysia. It focuses on the specific task of promoting Malaysia as a preferred tourism destination. Since its inception, it has emerged as a major player in the international tourism scene. In 2018, Malaysia registered 25.8 million tourist arrivals and RM84.1 billion tourist receipts, placing it among the major tourism destinations of the world.