KUALA LUMPUR: Tourism Malaysia is embarking on a comprehensive digitalisation journey to promote Malaysia and tap Chinese inbound tourist market via Mafengwo, the chinese travel services and social networking platform.
Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board deputy director International Promotion Division (Asia/Africa) Chan Hon Mun said 'smart tourism' would be a key thrust to increase tourism-based receipts, especially from growing independent travelers.
"China is currently our third largest tourist source market after Singapore and Indonesia.
"With Mafengwo’s collaboration with Malaysia tourism partners, there is an opportunity to grow our share of China market from 2.94 million tourist arrivals to a potential target of 3.48 million in 2020, in conjunction with the Visit Malaysia 2020 (VM2020) campaign,” he told reporters at the signing of memorandum of understanding (MoU) ceremony between Mafengwo and Adfinity Media Sdn Bhd here today.
Further, Chan said Mafengwo has a potential to grow Malaysia’s tourist arrivals from China market by providing a platform and a digital ecosystem for Malaysian partners to reach out to the 1.4 billion Chinese population.
"It enables the development of an open digital ecosystem and this allows both current and new tourism industry players to implement digital technologies to enhance tourism offerings and improve tourist experiences," he said.
Chan also said Tourism Malaysia is committed to develop China tourism market in Malaysia and past efforts in improving connectivity and convenience of obtaining visas to Malaysia has contributed to the growth.
"Last year, a total of 2.94 million Chinese tourists visited Malaysia, a growth of 29 per cent. They contributed RM12.3 billion to the national economy, a growth of 5.3 per cent,” Chan added.
Meanwhile, Mafengwo senior vice president Yu Zhuo said the company is looking forward to assist Malaysian tourism industry players in creating a richer online content for Chinese travellers, and thus building a localised marketing ecology in Malaysia.
She said Mafengwo users is estimated to be in the region of 1.3 million have been sharing their own experiences, travel trips and guides based on their trip to Malaysia.
"Malaysia has always been one of the most popular tourism destinations in the world, and Mafengwo has formed a relatively complete profile and structured set of information on Malaysia.
"With the emergence of individualised demands from users, Mafengwo shall employ a point of interest (POI) system to perform content customisation aimed at providing tourist from China better service while establishing opportunities for merchants in Malaysia,” she said.
In conjunction with the MoU, the company had selected seven distinguished local merchants comprising restaurants, tourist attractions and accommodation providers as ‘Mafengwo Users’ Top Pick’.
The National Mosque in Kuala Lumpur was named as one of Mafengwo’s tourism icon winners by as it has received high ratings from the app users.