Malaysia’s new tourism minister visited the UK last week to raise awareness of what the country has to offer British holidaymakers – an increasingly important market for the destination’s tourism industry.
Abdul Kadir Sheikh Fadzir met agents and operators at receptions in London, Manchester and Glasgow during his six-day trip.
He also held one-to-one meetings with several operators and with his UK counterpart, the secretary of state for culture, media and sport Chris Smith.
Tourism Malaysia’s new UK director Yazid Mohamed said the reason for the visit was to find ways to make it easier for the trade to sell Malaysia.
“The minister was here not just to promote Malaysia but also to exchange views and get feedback from the trade,” said Yazid.
Malaysia is so eager to attract more UK visitors that the tourist board’s London office has been involved in a frenzy of activity recently, including organising an educational for 200 agents in May and an agents’ roadshow taking in 16 UK cities.
“We want agents to be able to sell Malaysia with confidence,” added Yazid.
Tourism Malaysia will also be sponsoring a series of golf educationals starting next month, and it is planning a UK advertising campaign later this year, which may even include television slots if it receives sufficient funding from the head office in Kuala Lumpur.
Yazid said Malaysia, which has already become the second most popular destination in Asia for UK travellers, wants to become equal first with Thailand.
“We want to be at least on a par with our neighbours in terms of the number of visitors we get from the UK,” he said.
Thailand presently attracts almost 300,000 more UK visitors than Malaysia which received just over 160,000 in 1998 – the last year for which official figures are available – and Yazid admitted Tourism Malaysia has its work cut out to catch up.
Operators say Malaysia is becoming increasingly popular, however, largely because its beach resorts offer better value for money than Thailand, as well as a similar amount of variety.
Premier Holidays product director long-haul Rob Haynes said:”Malaysia is very much in vogue. Thailand saw price increases last year and with Malaysia perceived as giving better value, the market swung Malaysia’s way.”
Thomas Cook Holidays, voted the Best Tour Operator to Malaysia by Tourism Malaysia and Malaysia Airlines, said it has seen a 76% increase in bookings so far this year.
Operators’ programmes have been expanded this year to include more beach resorts, particularly the lesser-known areas of the east coast, and more adventure options.
There is also more flight capacity to Kuala Lumpur from the UK with both Malaysia Airlines and British Airways having service boosts.
From Thursday, Malaysia Airlines’ three weekly flights from Manchester will operate non-stop to Kuala Lumpur, rather than via Munich, which means the airline will have twice as many seats to sell in the UK.
From Saturday, British Airways launches a dedicated five-times a week service between Heathrow and Kuala Lumpur. It presently operates three flights a week to the city, which continue on to Australia.
A BA spokeswoman said the Boeing 747 operating the route will be replaced by a Boeing 777 with about 100 fewer seats but the airline plans to increase its frequency soon to six flights weekly.