Tourism Malaysia confident of hitting 27.3mil foreign tourist target this year

 

Chinese tourists on the maiden flight from the Shenyang Taoxian International Airport being greeted on arrival by Tiong King Sing at KLIA today. (Bernama pic)

SEPANG: Tourism Malaysia is confident of achieving its target of 27.3 million foreign tourist arrivals this year due to several supporting factors.

They include the government’s charter flight matching grant incentive, the visa liberalisation programme and the increase in tourism promotion activities abroad.

Tourism Malaysia director-general Ammar Abd Ghapar said more than 20 million foreign tourists came to Malaysia last year, surpassing the targeted 19.1 million tourist arrivals.

“We encourage more charter flights to Malaysia because we understand the need for new routes and more frequent flights to achieve the target.

Ammar Abd Ghapar.

“The charter flight matching grant is crucial to increase the frequency of flights to Malaysia.”

Ammar spoke to reporters after receiving passengers on the Malaysia Airlines maiden flight from the Shenyang Taoxian International Airport, Shenyang, Liaoning, China. Tourism, arts and culture minister Tiong King Sing was also there to greet the passengers.

“The announcement of the visa-free plan for Chinese travellers effective Dec 1, 2023 has spurred enquiries and bookings to Malaysia from China.

“Trip.com reported a 53.9% increase in inbound travel to Malaysia for the Chinese New Year as compared to last year,” he said, adding that Tourism Malaysia has targeted about 200,000 tourist arrivals from China a month. - FMT