Will spending more on promotions get more visitors?

 

OVER the past decades, tourism industry players have been calling on the government to allocate adequate budgets for advertising and promotions (A&P) to lure more foreigners to visit Malaysia.

However, many countries around the world, including our neighbours, are also doing the same and we will be left behind if not spending just as much.

It is like an arms race but instead of developing and accumulating weapons, the targets are tourist arrivals and expenditures.

Nevertheless, money spent on A&P will be largely wasted if we do not have good products to begin with and the ability to identify and offer them meaningfully.

Interestingly, people with the greatest influence on tourist arrivals are hidden in plain sight, which will be discussed later.

In promoting the first Visit Malaysia Year in 1990, audiences were enthralled watching videos showing jungle-clad mountains with waterfalls and streams, secluded beaches and islands, fascinating sites and cultures, and accompanied by narratives, music and promotional songs.

That was 34 years ago and the world has changed much since then. With widespread use of the internet and smartphones, people can easily watch a video of any destination they fancy or take a virtual tour of any major city such as using Street View in Google Earth.

Hardly anyone watches advertisements and almost all will skip them or take a break if forced to wait until the end of the commercial.

Advertisements can be counterproductive and generate a backlash or hatred for the brand, however pleasant or persuasive the voice-over may be.

Today, most people suffer from information overload as many scroll through in rapid succession hundreds of texts, photos and videos daily, spending a little more time on those that catch their interest or attention, and seldom reading long reports or watching lengthy videos.

(Image: Digital Trends)

Many are not taken in by advertorials, infomercials or sponsored content. Therefore, merely compiling facts and figures or gathering and listing a great variety of tourism products Malaysia has to offer and publicising them will not be appealing, as data do not speak for themselves.

And if any organisation were to create and post yet another text, photo or video online to tell, sell, advertise or promote, the chances of it being viewed by many is as good as a million to one. It would be easier to strike a lottery.

When the Tourist Development Corporation was established in 1972, most of the American tourists who came had read travel guidebooks about Malaysia, and outbound tour operators there included Kuala Lumpur as one of the many stops in the itinerary.

Then came the first travel blog in 1994 with people writing about their travel experiences and publishing them onto online blogs that are accessible to the public. But travel bloggers have given way to vloggers, as most people prefer to watch and listen than just read and imagine.

There are many popular travel and food vloggers, influencers or YouTubers. But those with large numbers of subscribers do not necessarily mean they are most effective in swaying large numbers of foreigners to visit Malaysia or patronise a local food outlet.

The group of people that can make the biggest impact on potential visitors to Malaysia is hidden in plain sight. They are the foreign tourists already in our country and their numbers are several hundred thousand on any given day!

The texts, photos and videos they send to their friends and relatives back home can make or break tourism in Malaysia. Therefore, we should focus on giving tourists a great time as using mass communication alone is nothing more than putting up the contents in cyberspace.

(Image: The Star)

For example, instead of letting visitors fend for themselves at popular tourist sites, we should build platforms at vantage points for them to take selfies with the famous location distinctly in the background to facilitate them to show that they have been there and done that.

At shopping malls, stages can be built for them to talk about their own country or why they came to Malaysia, or they could sing, dance, play music or perform a show. The aim is to record them having a great time and forward the videos to family and friends.

Instead of merely watching a cultural dance, they could easily learn how to dance on the spot by first buying and putting on a songkok and sarong. Those fit enough would be delighted to try the more tricky but thrilling bamboo dance.

Lest we forget, large numbers of tourists to Malaysia are repeat visitors, just like many patrons in popular eateries are regular customers.

They not only contribute greatly to expenditures, but they also recommend or even bring along friends and relatives on their next visit.

For experiential tourism, the list of activities is endless as long as we are creative. Thousands of tourism students can be roped in as volunteers to help ensure that visitors are accorded the warmest hospitality ever, especially with only 15 months left to Visit Malaysia 2026.

YS Chan is Asean Tourism Master Trainer, master trainer for Mesra Malaysia and Travel & Tours Enhancement Course. He is also a tourism and transport industry consultant and writer.

The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT

 - Focus Malaysia.