MUMBAI: EaseMyTrip.com, (EMT) one of the leading players in the Online Travel Aggregators segment, has joined hands with Malaysia Tourism Board to promote the destination amongst Indian tourists and offer customized tour packages for Malaysia at attractive rates.
For promoting tourism in Malaysia, renowned TV actress Adaa Khan of Naagin series fame joined EaseMyTrip’s team.
Talking about this association, Mr. Sulaiman Bin Suip, Director, Tourism Malaysia, New Delhi said, “It is indeed a great opportunity to associate with EaseMyTrip with an aim to boost tourism in an unexplored destination like Sabah through popular TV actress Ms. Adaa khan. Sabah is one of the most beautiful destinations in Malaysia. White sand, beautiful scenic view, crystal clear water along with mesmerizing marine life makes Sabah, an ultimate destination for a perfect leisure time in Malaysia. This initiative would definitely help us to showcase different side of Malaysia to the potential travelers.”
Commenting upon this development, Mr. Rikant Pitti, Co-Founder & COO, EaseMyTrip said, “We are elated to associate with Malaysia Tourism Board. Malaysia being a culturally rich nation, offers tons of places to explore with numerous activities to enjoy. The country has set a target of attracting at least one million tourists from India every year and we are delighted to be part of this vision of the board which would further be beneficial for EaseMyTrip as a brand.”
In order to make this a reality, Malaysia Tourism Board has pledged to amplify the nation’s promotion in India. This year, Malaysia tourism board is expecting a 20% growth in tourist arrivals from India owing to various marketing initiatives across major Indian cities.
India is amongst the top 10 countries for Malaysia in terms of tourists. Almost 600,311 Indian tourists visited Malaysia, registering a growth of more than 8.6% in 2018 and spent around RM 2.7 Billion. Moreover, from January to May 2019, a total number of 2,95,609 Indian tourists visited the country registering a growth of 15.5% in comparison to the same period of the last year. Malaysia is now aiming to target of 728,000 Indian tourists to visit Malaysia. Understanding the growing popularity of the region amongst Indians, EaseMyTrip has tied up with the tourism board of Malaysia.
MUMBAI: “Malaysia, truly Asia!” Or is it? What was once the hottest vacation destinations is now not so popular. All because of the disappearance of Malaysian airline MH370 in 2014. The country’s tourism, which was once booming with international tourists, has now taken a hit as tourists have been avoiding the country in the wake of the incident.
The country has since been reeling to get back on its feet and increase tourist footfall. Although Malaysia ranks ninth in the world for tourist arrivals, it faces severe competition from other countries.
Bollywood has had a long love affair with beautiful locations in Malaysia and the country has heavily promoted in Roy, Shaadi Se Pehle, Yaadein and Shahrukh Khan’s remake of Don as Don 2. In 2016, Tourism Malaysia, together with AirTravel Enterprises India Limited (ATE), introduced the Malaysia Kabali-package deal during the launch of Rajnikant led movie Kabali. This was a part of its strategy to draw Indian travellers to Malaysia where there is already a sizable Indian community.
Travel and tourism is one of the world’s fastest-growing sectors today, with close to $1.6 trillion clocked in bookings in 2017. Each year, the global traveller pool is flooded with millions of new consumers from both emerging and developed markets, many with rising disposable incomes and a newfound ability to experience the world.
As many as 2.8 crore Indians travel to international destinations every year. Places like Dubai, Switzerland, Maldives, Macau, Bali, Singapore, Thailand among few others, have always been popular among Indians. Malaysia, that was once India’s favourite tourist spot, seems to have lost its sheen with newer destinations being discovered by the millennial generation.
While Tourism Malaysia director Mohammed Hafiz Hashim realises the stiff competition in the tourism industry with new emerging tourism destinations, he remains positive that Malaysia is a popular tourist destination among Indians and just needs constant reminders.
According to a 2017 report by TripAdvisor, for globetrotting Indians preferred travelling to Dubai, Singapore, Bangkok and Pattaya, while the evolved and well-heeled Indians sought relatively unexplored destinations such as Genoa in Italy, Corsica in France, Bora Bora and Iceland.
In an effort to diversify the economy and make Malaysia’s economy less dependent on exports, the government push to increase tourism has resulted in it being the third largest source of foreign exchange income that accounts for 20 per cent of Malaysia’s economy.
The country sees tourists majorly from Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, China, Japan, Korea and India. India has always been in the top 10 markets for Malaysia with a 10 per cent share out of the total 27 million tourists every year. Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board (MTPB) wants to put India in the top five counties by the end of 2018. For Malaysia, 1.7 lakh of its visitors come from India every year, with most travelling between April-June and November-January.
To tap in new consumers, the board now wants to shift focus from the hygiene urban population to tier II and tier III towns. But does the consumer living in a village have budget to spare and travel internationally? Tourism Malaysia director definitely thinks so! Hashim believes that the audience in smaller segments of India definitely has the budget but don’t know what to do with the money and that’s where agents help them in planning and deciding. Although the numbers from the smaller segment aren’t astounding with less than 20 per cent growth y-o-y, he is optimistic that it will grow further in the next year.
Travel ads are usually targeted at those with enough funds to spare for travel. Hence, it makes more sense for them to advertise on lifestyle and infotainment channels along with B2B marketing. And that’s exactly what most tourism companies do. However, Tourism Malaysia has no plan of launching the campaign on television due to budget constraints and it will only be digital-led since it is cheap, efficient and quick.
The tourism board is trying to get local (Indian) carriers to fly to Malaysia as currently there are no direct outbound flights to Malaysia. Raising the concern, Hashim said, “We only rely on our own Malaysian airlines to carry passengers. If we can get Indian players like Indigo, Jet Airways, Air India or Vistara to fly to us, we can get good numbers.”
For this, Tourism of Malaysia is in conversation with the government of India and private players to get the landing rights for Malaysia. It is confident that the conversation will prove to be a success and direct flights for Malaysia will begin as soon as December 2018.
The challenge for Malaysia now is not just to market itself better than others but also regenerate interest among Indians. The country will also have to change its communication to target the Gen-Z and young consumers. Since the company doesn’t advertise on television or digital at a large scale, it will have a challenging time to ensure its place in a traveller’s bucket list.
BENGALURU: Tourism Malaysia will launch a 360 degree campaign in April in India to attract more tourists from the country. The Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board (MTPB) wants to attract 10 lakh tourists from India and Sri Lanka this calendar year. To that extent, Tourism Malaysia has announced new tourism destination packages which it will also be promoting during the campaign.
Malaysia’s tourism sector continued to be a significant contributor to the country’s economy in 2015, with global tourist arrivals at 257 lakh. The South Asian market is important to Malaysia and Indians remained its top 10 arrivals in 2014, ranking sixth with a total of 770,108 tourists, while Sri Lanka recorded 61,670 tourists. In 2015, hit by the two Malaysia Airlines mishaps, the number of tourists from India and Sri Lanka declined to 722,141 and 51,337 respectively.
“The campaign that will start in April will be an on-going one. We are targeting Malaysian Ringgit (RM)103 billion revenue from tourists from across the world this year. In 2015, revenues from tourism were RM69.1 billion, in 2014 they were RM72.13 billion,” informed Indian community relations advisor to the Minister of Tourism & Culture Malaysia and a member of Tourism Malaysia board of directors Dato’ Daljit Singh.
Tourism Malaysia’s campaign will include print, digital, outdoor, television and radio. For the present, creatives and media buying will be handled by the MTPB headquarters in Malaysia. “We will look at popular local and regional television channels and radio stations in select cities for the campaign. Even in the case of print, we will be looking at publications that are favoured by readers. For example, in Tamil Nadu, we would look at channels like Sun TV for our TVCs’,” said MTPB director Noor Azman Bin Samsudin.
“Tourism Malaysia has recently revamped its website to make it more user-friendly. We are very much there on social media such as Facebook and Twitter,” revealed MTPB’s senior deputy director – South Asia & Africa Unit and International Promotion Division – Salahuddin Mohd Ariffin.
Further, as part of its efforts to raise awareness on Malaysia as a destination of choice and to engage with the media, Tourism Malaysia has embarked on a sales mission to India and Sri Lanka from 25 February to 3 March. The sales mission is expected to increase tourist arrivals and receipts from the South Asian market during the peak travelling season from May to July.
The 9-day sales mission covers the Indian cities of Chandigarh, Lucknow, Bengaluru, Kochi, and Colombo in Sri Lanka. The delegation, headed by Dato’ Daljit Singh, comprises representatives from travel agents/tour operators, hotels/resorts, tourism products/attractions, state tourism authorities, and airlines. Some of the notable delegates include Genting Malaysia Bhd, Legol and Malaysia Resort, Sunway Lagoon, Tourism Johor, Tourism Selangor, Malaysia Airlines, Malindo Air, and AirAsia.
BENGALURU: Tourism Malaysia will launch a 360 degree campaign in April in India to attract more tourists from the country. The Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board (MTPB) wants to attract 10 lakh tourists from India and Sri Lanka this calendar year. To that extent, Tourism Malaysia has announced new tourism destination packages which it will also be promoting during the campaign.
Malaysia’s tourism sector continued to be a significant contributor to the country’s economy in 2015, with global tourist arrivals at 257 lakh. The South Asian market is important to Malaysia and Indians remained its top 10 arrivals in 2014, ranking sixth with a total of 770,108 tourists, while Sri Lanka recorded 61,670 tourists. In 2015, hit by the two Malaysia Airlines mishaps, the number of tourists from India and Sri Lanka declined to 722,141 and 51,337 respectively.
“The campaign that will start in April will be an on-going one. We are targeting Malaysian Ringgit (RM)103 billion revenue from tourists from across the world this year. In 2015, revenues from tourism were RM69.1 billion, in 2014 they were RM72.13 billion,” informed Indian community relations advisor to the Minister of Tourism & Culture Malaysia and a member of Tourism Malaysia board of directors Dato’ Daljit Singh.
Tourism Malaysia’s campaign will include print, digital, outdoor, television and radio. For the present, creatives and media buying will be handled by the MTPB headquarters in Malaysia. “We will look at popular local and regional television channels and radio stations in select cities for the campaign. Even in the case of print, we will be looking at publications that are favoured by readers. For example, in Tamil Nadu, we would look at channels like Sun TV for our TVCs’,” said MTPB director Noor Azman Bin Samsudin.
“Tourism Malaysia has recently revamped its website to make it more user-friendly. We are very much there on social media such as Facebook and Twitter,” revealed MTPB’s senior deputy director – South Asia & Africa Unit and International Promotion Division – Salahuddin Mohd Ariffin.
Further, as part of its efforts to raise awareness on Malaysia as a destination of choice and to engage with the media, Tourism Malaysia has embarked on a sales mission to India and Sri Lanka from 25 February to 3 March. The sales mission is expected to increase tourist arrivals and receipts from the South Asian market during the peak travelling season from May to July.
The 9-day sales mission covers the Indian cities of Chandigarh, Lucknow, Bengaluru, Kochi, and Colombo in Sri Lanka. The delegation, headed by Dato’ Daljit Singh, comprises representatives from travel agents/tour operators, hotels/resorts, tourism products/attractions, state tourism authorities, and airlines. Some of the notable delegates include Genting Malaysia Bhd, Legol and Malaysia Resort, Sunway Lagoon, Tourism Johor, Tourism Selangor, Malaysia Airlines, Malindo Air, and AirAsia.
