Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Tuesday, Jun 10, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version | Audio
Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Tuesday, Jun 10, 2008 ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version | Audio |
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Marketing
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Promotions & Offers Web Extras - Tourism Tourism Malaysia to launch off-season packages Tunia Cherian Chennai, June 9 The hike in airline fares and the slump in the stock market have not dampened spirits at Tourism Malaysia which is looking to attract ever more tourists from India. The national tourism board is in talks with a number of airlines that fly to Malaysia to come out with special schemes to keep the tourist numbers from India up during the off-season from July through to September. According to Mr P. Manoharan, Director, Tourism Malaysia, India, the tourism board would shortly launch a three-night package to Penang which would be priced at less than Rs 30,000 for travel from anywhere in the South. This is a base package which could be clubbed with trips to Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and points in Thailand. These packages would be targeted at young couples, incentive and corporate travel. The tourism board would also look at attracting Indian shoppers during this period with a shopping carnival. From July, all the important malls and department stores in Malaysia would offer discounts of 10-70 per cent. As a special incentive for tourists, the board is in talks with airlines to offer round trip passengers an excess baggage allowance of 5-10 kg during this period. Asked about the impact of the spiralling cost of ATF and the impact on air travel, he said the ATF price hike and the stock market downtrend have not had a major impact on travel to the Far East destinations which are within 4 to 5 hours from India. “Our feedback from the travel agents is that the demand for travel to Malaysia has been tremendous and in fact there has been a shortage of rooms. Short-holiday packages have been especially popular with travellers,” he said. He adds that the impact of the ATF price hike would be felt more on the long-haul sectors where the price of a ticket may be about Rs 1 lakh. The average price of a four-night holiday at Malaysia is between Rs 30,000 and Rs 35,000 per passenger. This would work out cheaper than a holiday within India. He admits that earlier, packages were available for Rs 20,000- Rs 25,000. But travellers had become more discerning and were keen to get value for their money, settling for nothing less than four-five star accommodation.
Indian tourist arrivals up Malaysia received 1.6 lakh tourists from India during January-April 2008, an 18 per cent hike on the figure for the same period last year. From January-December 2007, Malaysia received 4.22 lakh tourists from India, which represented a 51 per cent increase on the previous year’s number, and the board hopes to see this figure touch 5 lakh this year. India is among the top seven contributor markets to Malaysian tourism. Outside of the Asean countries, China and India were the top contributor markets, he said. The average spend per capita of the Indian tourist was around $840 during calendar 2007. The total receipts came up to $400 million and the average length of stay was 6.4 nights, he said. More Stories on : Promotions & Offers | Tourism
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