Malaysia Airlines has announced plans to host 20% more agents on fam trips next year as it revealed its new Fly Malaysia campaign at World Travel Market in London.
The campaign is set to run until December 2020 and aims to support tourist board Visit Malaysia’s target of attracting 30 million visitors in 2020.
The airline was also due to renew an agreement today (Monday) with the Sarawak Tourism Board to promote travel to this lesser-known region of Malaysia.
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Richard de Villa, UK & Europe marketing manager, said: “The new campaign we’re launching is ‘Fly Malaysia, Experience Malaysia’, to tie in with our history as the country’s flag carrier. We’re the national airline partner for Visit Malaysia 2020, so there was no better time to launch the campaign.
“People always think about Langkawi, Borneo, Penang or Kuala Lumpur, but there are 13 states that have beautiful attractions and lots to offer but haven’t had the exposure, so we will be working with the trade to bring these destinations to light.”
The campaign will cover advertising in print, social media and ‘out of home’ (which includes billboards, advertising in shopping centres, trains or buses), plus partnerships with credit card providers and a number of incentive programmes.
De Villa said the campaign would represent “substantially more” spending in the UK market compared with this year.
He added that the airline would have hosted around 60 agents on fam trips by the end of 2019 – including a megafam later this month visiting Kuala Lumpur, Langkawi, Penang and Kota Kinabalu – but this number would rise next year.
“We’re looking to increase that by another 20% [in 2020],” he said. “Travel agents will also have more content. We’re launching a series of videos at WTM, new image collateral, and new content will be sent to all key partners.”
The airline has added 360-degree videos to its MH Expert online training programme with OTT, and will be running a new year incentive for an agent to win a holiday to Malaysia with business class flights.