KUANTAN: In the wake of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak, Tourism Pahang will shift its attention to South America and Russia to boost its tourism market this year.
State Tourism and Culture Committee chairman Datuk Seri Mohd Sharkar Shamsudin said following the outbreak, tourist arrivals from China to Pahang are expected to suffer a drop.
“Pahang receives between 700,000 to one million tourists from China every year. The current outbreak could see lower tourist arrivals,” he said.
However, he noted that this was nothing new, as they had also experienced such setbacks during the SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) outbreak in 2003, the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 and the MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) outbreak in 2014.
"Now, Tourism Pahang is looking to woo tourists from South America and Russia. Based on our observations, they are considered big-spenders as they prefer to participate in our tour packages and spend several days in Pahang.
“We hope to draw them to Pahang and not solely only rely on China tourists," he told a press conference at the Pahang Simply Awesome" short-video competition event here on Tuesday.
Sharkar said he was told by travel and tour agents that some tourists have chosen to cancel their trips to the state. He expects things to recover within a month or two.
"This is normal as there might be those who plan to travel to China and might now decide to come to Malaysia or Pahang for their holidays.We will have to think of an alternative and look into efforts on how we can attract people to come here," he said.
On the short video competition, Sharkar said a total of RM100,000 in cash prizes are up for grabs for the top three winners when they submit their monthly entries between February and December this year.
"Malaysians are invited to participate and every month they are required to send their entries based on the given theme. The objective of the short video competition is to attract people to Pahang and also utilise social media to capture wonderful moments during the stay here," he said.
He said every month, the top three winners will receive RM3,000, RM2,000 and RM1,000, respectively, while the winners between February and December will qualify for the grand prize, which offers RM30,000 cash.
Forms for the competition can be obtained from the Tourism Pahang webpage at www.pahangtourism.org.my/index.php/about-us/downloads.