To woo Indians, Malaysia to offer slew of attractive travel programmes

South East Asian nation of Malaysia is seeking to woo Indian tourist visitors with a slew of attractive travel offerings while expecting to attract more than 7,00,000 visitors from India this year.

Sulaiman Suib, Tourism Malaysia Director, said, “India ranks among top 10 countries for Malaysia in terms of tourist visitors. In 2018, 5,94,098 Indian tourists visited Malaysia, registering a growth of over 7.5 per cent. Statistics from January to May 2019 shows that a total of 2,95,609 India tourists visited, registering a growth of 15.5 per cent, compared to same period of previous year.”

“Malaysia is aiming a target of 7,28,000 India tourists to visitors to Malaysia this year. If we sustain this growth momentum, it won’t be long before we join the one million club,” he said.

Speaking on the sidelines of ‘Visit Malyasia 2020’ event hosted here where more than 37 travel and tour operators converged, the Malaysian official said, “Tourism Malaysia is doing well with good arrivals and tourism development. International visitors swelled this year and we expect Indian visitors also to go up significantly.”

South India is an important market and accounts for about 60 plus percentage of overall tourist visitors from India.

“In the recent period, we have simplified the visa issuance process which makes it much more attractive for people travelling to Malaysia with eNTRI and eVISa. There has also been a significant growth in destination events and MICE,” he explained.

Logi Dashan Thanraj, Deputy Director of Tourism Malaysia for South India and Sri Lanka, said, “International tourism fairs’ participation as well as Mega Familiarisation programmes were already in place. Malaysia hopes to reach the film makers, the students market and wedding planners to choose Malaysia as their preferred destination.”

Suib said, “The Malaysia’s Kuala Lampur airport is connected to 14 destinations in India. Various airliners including Malaysian Airlines, offer 238 weekly flights. This number is set to go up as at least two more airliners Vistara and SpiceJet are set to connect. Indigo has added a number of additional flights since it launched its services.”