IT will be hard to hit the target of 30 million tourist arrivals for Visit Malaysia Year 2020 (VMY2020) as promotions are rolling out too late, said tourism industry players.

Malaysian Association of Hotels (MAH) president Kamaruddin Bahrin said some campaigns are only starting now.

“It will be really difficult for us to achieve the target of 30 million visitors because we do not see any great and outstanding promotions.

“The campaign was slow to start with, and it is sluggish,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

He said one example is the VMY2020 calendar, which was released only recently.

“With the calendar’s late release, it is difficult for industry players to plan our promotions because tourists normally plan their holidays in advance.”

With less than a month to 2020, the Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board on December 3 announced the launch of the VMY2020 website.

Malaysia is targeting 30 million tourist arrivals and RM100 billion in tourism revenue next year.

Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Mohamaddin Ketapi has said the number of foreign visitors to the country last year was 25,832,354, down 0.4%, or 116,105 people, from the 25,948,459 in 2017.

He also said the first quarter of this year registered a 16.9% increase in visitors, who spent RM21.4 billion.

In comparison, tourist spending in the same period last year amounted to RM18.3 billion.

An industry player who wanted to be known only as Chua agreed that the aim of 30 million tourists will not be easy to achieve.

The government’s campaign is ineffective, he said, adding that there seems to be little effort to step up promotions, making it hard to compete with regional neighbours Thailand and Indonesia.

“If Malaysia was once the most popular destination, we have lost that position to Indonesia.

“Thailand did their promotion a year in advance and their advertising campaign was top-notch, while we are just starting.”

He added that the tourism and departure taxes make Malaysia less attractive as a holiday destination.

Putrajaya began collecting the departure levy on September 1 despite calls by the Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents to defer its implementation till after VMY2020.

Passengers leaving Malaysia by air for Asean countries are charged RM8 for economy class and RM50 for other classes, while those taking flights to destinations beyond Asean are charged RM20 for economy class and RM150 for other classes.

There is also a passenger service charge with different rates for flights to Asean and destinations beyond the region.

Kamaruddin said the government could have done more to engage industry players in its promotion campaign.

“We need to do it together. We should be focused on our goal, on marketing with all stakeholders.”

He said MAH had taken the initiative to produce its own promotional video.

“We made the Discover Malaysia video earlier this year, and it will be screened at all our member hotels.”

VMY2020 budget disbursed next year

A ministry source said financial woes are one of the reasons for the campaign’s late launch.

A RM1.1 billion allocation for tourism was announced during Budget 2020’s tabling in October, but the funds have yet to be given to the ministry.

“The ministry will only get the money in the new year, and this year’s allocation for the ministry is not enough to finance the campaign early,” said the source.

The first Visit Malaysia campaign was held in 1990, and the last in 2014.

The 2014 campaign was considered a flop as it did not meet the target of 28 million tourist arrivals.

Then tourism minister Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz had attributed the dismal showing to the unexplained disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in March that year.

He also blamed the Home Ministry’s visa charge for Chinese nationals, saying it led to the failure to attract 600,000 travellers from the country as targeted.

Among the problems that beset the VMY2020 campaign early on was its original logo, which was roundly criticised for its amateurish design when it was unveiled in January last year.

A contest was then held to replace the logo after Pakatan Harapan came to power. However, the new design, too, was panned, with allegations that it was copied.

Critics also said its slogan “Visit Truly Asia Malaysia” – a play on the popular “Malaysia, Truly Asia” tagline from previous campaigns – was incomprehensible. – December 9, 2019.