Arabian Travel Market (ATM) : Malaysia sets out Marketing Offensive

http://www.hoteliermiddleeast.com/article-4114-atm_malaysia_sets_out_marketing_offensive/1/

by Gemma Greenwood
May 5, 2009


Tourism Malaysia has set out its marketing plan for the Middle East as it looks to boost the number of arrivals from this lucrative market.The key aims of the 2009 strategy, said Tourism Malaysia deputy director general Azizan Noordin, were to introduce new destinations to the Middle East market and increase their length of stay in Malaysia.

“We want to promote new destinations such as Johor, Terengganu, Pahang, Sabah and Sarawak,” he said, speaking at a pre-Arabian Travel Market (ATM) press conference yesterday (Monday May 4).“We also want to increase the length of stay of our Middle East visitors by offering value for money packages, particularly during our lean (off-peak) periods,” he said.

Malaysia Airlines has launched holiday packages for the summer with prices starting from AED 2945 per person including flights and accommodation.
In addition, the airline has upped its summer schedule to the Gulf. Flights depart Dubai daily (five of which are non-stop and two via Karachi); Jeddah twice weekly; and Istanbul via Dubai two flights weekly.

Between June 18 and August 18 only the carrier while operate a twice-weekly non-stop flight from Kuwait to Kuala Lumpur, while the airline codeshares on flights from Abu Dhabi, Cairo, Bahrain, Doha and Muscat to KL. Noordin said Tourism Malaysia was particularly keen to encourage more Middle East arrivals during Ramadan.“They can still fast and Iftar and Suhar are widely available,” he said.

Other new concepts it planned to promote to the market, he added, were niche products such as homestays, MICE, medical tourism and eco tourism.
The biggest of the Middle East origin markets for Malaysia is Saudi Arabia. In 2008, this market generated tourism receipts of RM 596.4 million, stayed an average of 10.5 nights and generated revenue per capita of RM 7991.6.

In second place was the UAE generating RM 221 million in receipts, staying 9.2 nights on average and spending RM 6315.7 per capita.Omani visitors generated RM 112 million receipts, but stayed an average of 9.5 nights and spent RM 6412.2 per capita.Noordin conceded that this year, total tourism arrivals to Malaysia were anticipated at 20 million, compared to 22 million in 2008 and 20.9 million in 2007.The slowdown in travel due to the economic climate was the key reason, he said.

When asked if Malaysia would actually see more visitors travel to Malaysia instead of Thailand, which some deemed unsafe following the recent protests in the capital Bangkok, Noordin said that it was true that some tourists considered Malaysia a safer place to visit.However, he said that Tourism Malaysia worked very closely with both the Tourism Authority of Thailand and Singapore Tourism to generate business for all three destinations and that it was in all of their best interests for visitor arrivals to be strong to each.

“In terms of tourists coming from Europe, we sometimes depend on Thailand to get tourists travelling from there to our shores,” he said. “We are really hoping the situation in Thailand will be back to normal very soon.” He also said that “like any other country”, Malaysia was “concerned” about the global Swine Flu outbreak.

“However, we had our fair share of the problem back in 2003 when SARS (Bird Flu) broke out and we have learned from experience,” he said.
“We are also working with Thailand in terms of carrying out medical screening at borders and entry points [to Malaysia].”

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