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Malaysia will set up a visa facilitating counter in Kochi to expedite the visa processing of its passengers from Kerala, considering the recent surge in the volume of travel between the two countries.
Mr P. B. Boss, President, IATA Agents Association of India (IAAI), Kerala State Committee, said the Malaysian High Commissioner to India Mr Dato' Tan Seng Sung has agreed to open up a visa facilitation counter at Kochi within a month. A decision to this effect was taken during a meeting between a high-level delegation from the country and the management committee of the association in Kochi recently, he said.
Indo-Malaysia tourism
Tourism between Malaysia and India, especially Kerala, has been booming in the recent period. With the increase in passenger movement, there has also been an increase in the processing of visas. However, the agents are facing problems since the nearest Malaysian visa processing centre is at Chennai, he said.
According to Mr Boss, Kochi is the second station after Chennai in South India to send the largest number of passengers to Malaysia. The sector accounts for one tenth of the total passenger movement from Chennai, while this is about five per cent for the Cochin International Airport Ltd. The growth of outbound travel from India to Malaysia has been increasing over the last few years, with tourist arrivals alone registering a six-fold growth at 690,000 in 2010 from just 130,000 in 2000.
Flight timings
Following a request from the IAAI Association, the High Commissioner agreed to change the timings of the Air Asia flight operating between Kuala Lumpur and Kochi from October. As part of promoting leisure traffic from the State, the possibility of introducing the national carrier of Malaysia to the airport here either directly or via Chennai will be explored to further boost the tourism sector of the two countries.
With regard to the issue of transit visa for onward journey, the High Commissioner also promised to initiate steps to either to waive off the procedure, or to make some other alternative arrangements since Kerala has a lot many outbound passengers to Malaysia and also for onward journey from there, Mr Boss said.
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