KUALA LUMPUR: The Tourism, Arts and Culture Ministry will review its target of bringing in 30 million international tourists with more than RM100 billion in receipts for the Visit Malaysia 2020 (VMY2020) campaign.
This is being done following problems faced by more than 60 Malaysian tour agencies whose clients are mostly tourists from China.
The businesses are expected to be severely affected by the Chinese government’s directive to cancel inbound and outbound tour groups amid the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak.
Deputy Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Muhammad Bakhtiar Wan Chik said the ministry conducted a closed-door meeting with tourism industry players, including hotel operators and airline companies, to discuss the impact of the tightening of quarantine policies imposed by the Chinese government.
“The ministry will review and check if the target fixed for VMY2020 can be achieved due to the outbreak of the virus.
“At the moment, we are not sure how long this episode will last.
“Some quarters feel that this is only temporary, but there are those who believe that it will take some time for the situation to return to normal.
“We have not made any decision on this since we are discussing ways to mitigate the impact on Malaysia’s tourism industry due to the virus outbreak.”
The New Straits Times yesterday reported that the Chinese government’s suspension of inbound and outbound tour groups would affect Malaysia’s tourism industry, with losses running into millions of ringgit.
Malaysian Association of Tour Agencies and Travel Agents (Matta) president Datuk Tan Kok Liang had said that local tour companies were informed by their counterparts in China about the temporary suspension effective today.
According to Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board statistics, China was the third biggest source of foreign tourists after Singapore and Indonesia from January to September last year.
It was reported that Malaysia was targeting 3.2 million tourists from China through several promotional campaigns launched in conjunction with VMY2020.
Bakhtiar said he was informed during the meeting that there had been a significant reduction in tourist arrivals from China, as well as Malaysian tourists to China as fears among the people over the deadly virus escalated.
“Members of the Malaysian Inbound Tourism Association were the most affected by the decline in Chinese tourists.
“They hoped that the government could provide assistance to alleviate the losses.
“The ministry is finding alternatives to the problems, including identifying markets in other countries.
“It was discussed during the meeting that hotel and resort operators, as well as airline companies, could come up with attractive tour packages targeting local tourists to make up for the decline in Chinese tourist arrivals.”
The ministry, he said, was looking at other solutions to minimise the impact from the reduction in tourist arrivals from China.
“The ministry is doing all it
can to mitigate the situation to help those in the tourism industry.”
In Kedah, more tourists from China have cancelled their plans to visit Langkawi following the outbreak of the coronavirus.
Kedah/Perlis chapter of the Malaysian Association of Hotels vice-chairman Razmi Rahmat said many hotel operators on the island had begun to feel the impact of the outbreak.
“Many customers from China have cancelled their hotel reservations.”