Tourism Malaysia Initiative to Boost Arrivals from Southern Thailand for Visit Malaysia 2020

Tourism Malaysia has launched the “Malaysia Tourism Seminar and B2B Session” in conjunction with Cul-Tour Border Tourism for Visit Malaysia 2020 (VM2020) at the Centara Hotel, Hatyai, to promote Malaysia as a top of mind tourist destination among Southern Thai communities.

More than 100 local delegates from travel agents, associations and members of the media from southern Thailand attended. Tourism Malaysia also brought along nine Malaysia tourism industry players to attend this event.

The objective of the event was to inform attendees of the Visit Malaysia 2020 campaign and create a platform for networking and collaboration especially for package development and promotional efforts with an eye on welcoming more tourists from Southern Thailand to Malaysia. The programme was also initiated to strengthen the cooperation between Thailand and Malaysia, as both countries have a long-standing relationship as close neighbours.

Mr. Noran Ujang, Director of International Promotion Division (ASEAN) Tourism Malaysia, welcomed guests at the launching event and personally thanked the travel agents and media for their dedicated efforts and constant support in promoting Malaysia in Southern Thailand.

In 2018, Malaysia registered 25.8 million tourist arrivals to Malaysia with RM84.1 billion tourist receipts. Malaysia welcomed 1.9 million Thai tourists, an increase of 4.4% compared to the previous year, with RM3.8 billion tourist receipts. Thailand was ranked 4th in contribution of total tourist arrivals to Malaysia.

This year, from January to July, Malaysia received 1.15 million tourists from Thailand reflecting an increase of 2.9 per cent compared to the same period in 2018.

For VM2020, Malaysia targets a total of 30 million tourist arrivals, of which 2.3 million is expected from Thailand.