Malaysia is ramping up its efforts to get a bigger share of the UK travel market by highlighting its family holiday offering.
Brand new theme parks, high quality accommodation and food at value-for-money prices, plus new hotels and airline partnerships are some of the top selling points being promoted by the country’s tourism authorities.
“We need to position ourselves as a family destination,” Malaysia’s Minister of Tourism and Culture, YB Dato’ Seri Mohamed Nazri bin Addul Aziz told Travel Daily UK at this week’s World Travel Market.
“There’s never been a better time to go to Malaysia because the Malaysian Ringitt (MYR) is weak against Sterling and the destination is good value for money.”
Malaysia is also boosting its theme park offering to get more families to visit the destination and to fill the 10,000 extra hotel rooms the destination has planned (taking its total room count to 110,000).
In early 2016, Asia’s first animation theme park, the MYR450 million Movie Animation Park Studios (MAPS) will open in Ipoh, Perak, featuring several attractions including a DreamWorks Adventure Zone and the year after (2017), will see 20th Century Fox World open its doors in the Genting Highlands. They follow on from the success of Legoland Malaysia Resort, which opened in 2012.
It is hoped Malaysia’s new family attractions plus its diverse tourism offering, from culture and nature to shopping and golf, will pique the interest of the UK market and get its contribution to the Malaysian tourism industry back on track.
In 2014, the number of British tourists visiting Malaysia increased 7.8% to 445,789 compared to 413,472 in 2013. However, in the first half of 2015, British arrivals figures dipped 12.6%, due to “a number of factors”, Aziz revealed.
“There was a negative perception of Malaysia because of the Malaysia Airlines incidents,” he conceded.
This was compounded by the “economic slowdown in Europe” and limited air connectivity to Malaysia, he said.
“We are therefore working with some airlines to promote Malaysia,” Aziz continued. “For example, Etihad Airways, which is offering holiday packages to Malaysia in its brochure. This has been successful. We are also looking at a similar collaboration with Singapore Airlines.”
The Minister said Malaysia needed to quickly “make up for the debit” in British arrivals to Malaysia given the UK was its top source market in Europe.
“We are stepping up our promotional efforts,” he said. “WTM is an important platform for us and today (November 2) as have also launched a London cab campaign with 80 taxis [across the capital] featuring images of culture, nature and beaches in Malaysia.”
But it’s not just the UK market Malaysia needs to woo; Tourism Malaysia has set out ambitious targets to increase total arrivals to 36 million by 2020 compared to 27.4 million in 2014.
It is therefore targeting new markets in Europe like Spain and Eastern European countries, as well as China, India and the Middle East, revealed Aziz.
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