Malaysia is scheduled to receive 44 charter flights from North and East Asia region between 24 January and 1 March in conjunction with the upcoming Chinese New Year celebration 2010.

The flights are expected to carry about 6,477 holiday-makers from South Korea (360 pax), the People's Republic of China (3,590 pax) and Taiwan (2,527 pax). The points of origin in China are Hong Kong, Beijing, Guangzhou, Kunming and Shanghai.

Thirty of the scheduled flights will land in Kota Kinabalu, while the other Malaysia destinations involved in this charter programme are Kuala Lumpur, Kuching, Kuantan, Johor, Penang and Langkawi Island.

During the last Christmas celebration in December 2009, two charter flights from Hong Kong to Kota Kinabalu had carried 288 tourists to Malaysia. Following that, two charter flights from South Korea carried a total of 335 holiday-makers to Kuching on 4 and 7 January 2010.

TOURIST ARRIVALS
Malaysia recorded 23.65 million tourist arrivals in 2009. This was a significant increase of 7.2% compared to 22.05 million arrivals in 2008, surpassing the target of 19 million tourist arrivals set by the government earlier last year.

In terms of the China market which includes Hong Kong and Macau, a total of 1,019,404 tourists visited Malaysia last year. This signifies a 7.3% increase compared to 949,864 Chinese tourists in 2008. China was also ranked fifth in the top ten tourist generating markets for 2009.

Malaysia received 197,869 Taiwanese tourists last year, an increase of 3.6 per cent, compared to 190,979 in 2008. Meanwhile, a total of 227,312 tourist arrivals from South Korea were registered last year compared to 267,461 in 2008.

 

Issued by: Communications and Publicity Division, Tourism Malaysia
Date: 19 January 2010
For more information, please contact Mazita Johari at +603 26158442
or email: mazita@ tourism.gov.my
Website: www.tourism.gov.my