Return of Chinese spurs tourism
Published on: Thursday, April 28, 2016
PETALING JAYA: Chinese arrival figures rose again in 2015, in the first signs of a reversal to the decline since the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.According to Tourism Malaysia, Chinese visitor numbers climbed four per cent year-on-year in 2015, rising to 1.68 million, while tourism receipts from this market also increased 16.1 per cent or RM5.7 billion compared to 2014.The news was greeted warmly by Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (Matta) President Datuk Hamzah Rahmat, who agreed that it showed the Chinese were no longer avoiding Malaysia.
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"Of course this is a good sign. It means more Chinese nationals are coming to our shores," he said.Chinese arrivals that dropped sharply to 1.61 million in 2014 were attributed in part to the disappearance of MH370 that had 152 of the country's nationals on board. The Chinese blamed Malaysia for MH370 that remains missing.The situation worsened when Filipino gunmen kidnapped a Chinese tourist in Sabah the same year.Commenting on the recovery, Tourism Malaysia Chairman Wee Choo Keong said this could be increased even further by eliminating visa requirements for visitors from China.
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According to Wee, permanently exempting China from the list of countries whose citizens need a visa to visit Malaysia would also make the country more competitive with its neighbours."If Malaysia followed the visa-free policies of countries like Indonesia, I strongly believe the increase in Chinese tourists to Malaysia will be considerable," he said.
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Malaysia has temporarily exempted Chinese tourists from requiring a visa to enter the country between March 1 and December 31, which was announced by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak last year.Hamzah agreed and said that removing the requirement for Chinese visitors to apply for visas from their home country could also help encourage more visitors from there.He also suggested Putrajaya expedite the move to allow Chinese tourists to apply for a visa to Malaysia from anywhere in the world.Tourism and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz also welcomed the news and said more effort was now needed to actively speed up the recovery of this market."I am pleased with this development. We will be seeking more resources to embark on a massive campaign covering India, China and our neighbour Singapore," he said.Tourism Malaysia said preliminary figures indicated the number of visa applications received at a centre in China had doubled in the months before the exemption took effect."The trend confirmed the positive effect of the recent review on Malaysia's visa arrangements and its announcement in early March."Tourism Malaysia also said new services introduced by airlines since last year were showing excellent reception."The airlines are China Southern Airlines which is offering services between Guangzhou and Kota Kinabalu with three flights a week since December 2015 and AirAsia which provides four weekly flights between Guangzhou and Langkawi since January 2015," it said."A total of 17 charter flights had also been mounted between Chendu and Kunming, China, to Kota Kinabalu this year."It also cited other measures to draw Chinese tourists back to the country, such as the reinstatement of Air China's Beijing to Kuala Lumpur route in October 2015 which provided an additional of 1,016 seats per week, and Shila Almzah's appointment as Malaysia's Tourism Ambassador to China from March to February 2018.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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