At SATTE this year, Tourism Malaysia aims to focus on the niche products such as shopping, golfing, luxury tourism, soft tourism, theme parks and honeymoon packages. On top of that, emerging segments such as weddings and film-induced tourism also being promoted to Indians as a destination of choice. With more than 35,000 trade visitors expected, the event will anticipate a significant increase of Indian tourists to Malaysia and promote stronger cooperation between tour operators and members of the tourism fraternity.

The Malaysian delegation is headed by The Honourable Khairul Firdaus Akbar Khan, Deputy Minister of Tourism, Arts & Culture Malaysia together with twenty-four (24) tour agents, eleven (11) hotel/resort operators, four (4) tourism product owners, three (3) airline operators, four (4) state tourism board, one (1) medical tourism member, one (1) visa solution consultant along with several officials from Tourism Malaysia.

Just recently, from 30th January to 7th February 2023, Tourism Malaysia together with the Malaysia Association of Tour and Travel Agents (MATTA) have just concluded a roadshow campaign across five main cities in India, namely Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Ahmedabad.

“In 2019, before the pandemic, we welcomed 382,916 tourist arrivals from India with MYR3.6 million in tourist expenditure, while between January and September 2022, about 187,037 Indian tourists visited Malaysia. This year, we intend to achieve the arrival target of 15.6 million international tourist with MYR47.6 billion in tourism receipts. Out of that, we are optimist more than 400,000 tourist arrivals from India market. We do hope this market will continue to play the important role in achieving this number,” said The Honourable Khairul Firdaus Akbar Khan.

He added, “We will leverage on the niche product segment which could be a big platform for Malaysia, especially as a preferred wedding destination from the Indian market. Additionaly, we are keen to promote Malaysia as a destination of choice for film-induced tourism. A lot of incentives being provided should one comes to do the filming in Malaysia”.

At present, Malaysia has recently launched a new eVISA Multiple Entry Visa (MEV) facility consisting of fly & cruise, wedding, medical treatment and business visitors purposes for Indian tourists that comes with a six-month validity, a 30-day length of stay (LOS) and costs only INR1,000.00. The visa can be applied online through https://malaysiavisa.imi.gov.my/evisa/evisa.jsp.

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