MALAYSIA Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) and Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board (Tourism Malaysia) will promote, develop and increase inbound tourism under a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed in London recently.  

In a joint statement, MAHB and Tourism Malaysia said the MoU aimed to promote global tourism from India, China and Europe.

They said India and China were prime target markets due to the countries’ accessibility, passenger growth potential and large population.

MAHB managing director Badlisham Ghazali said the joint marketing initiatives required the establishment of a fund to support marketing campaign by airlines and travel industry players.

“The fund will be used for marketing and promotional activities in traditional and new media platforms throughout 2018.”.

The statement also said Malaysia remained one of the top Southeast Asia destinations for China, with over 23,000 flights per annum to and from KLIA and China in 2016.

There was also a steady growth in passenger movements from China between January and October 2017, which 7.8% increase compared with the same period in 2016.

India was the sixth largest tourism source market for Malaysia, with passenger movements between India and Malaysia growing 13% during the January-October 2017 period compared with the same period last year. – Bernama, November 8, 2017.