There has been a 15.2% growth in the number of Indians visiting Malaysia in the first six months of the current year ended June 2019 at over 3.54 lakh, said a Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board (MTPB) official.
“While international tourist arrivals grew 4.9%, Indian tourist arrivals saw 15.2% growth during the same period compared with last year,” said Mohamad Taib Ibrahim, senior deputy director, international promotion division, Asia/Africa, MTPB.
Mr. Ibrahim was here to kick-start the Visit Malaysia 2020 campaign along with Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents.
To a question, he said that tourism in Malaysia was doing well with steady arrivals and tourism development. Till date, MTPB did not feel the impact of economic slowdown in India.
MTPB was betting on film industry, MICE and leisure travellers for growth.
MTPB has been aggressively campaigning for the year-long Visit Malaysia 2020 show and it had asked its Ministry to increase the budget allocation.
“This is the fifth edition. The last four editions resulted in a spike in tourist arrivals. This time too, we are expecting a surge in arrivals. We expect total arrivals of 30 million global visitors and tourism bill receipts of 100 billion ringgit,” he said.
“Last year, Malaysia greeted six lakh Indians and they spent almost 2.7 billion ringgit. For 2020, we have a target to welcome 7.28 lakh Indian tourists,” he said.
Asked about introduction of visa on arrival, he said it was tried during the fourth edition of Visit Malaysia show and it resulted in good number of arrivals. It could be tried again, he said.
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