THE Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (MATTA) and research company GfK will collaborate by means of data exchange to obtain greater market insights and understanding about outbound consumer behaviour among the Malaysian travelling public.
In a pilot project, 10 members of MATTA have agreed to share their data with GfK on the booking habits among Malaysian outbound travellers as well as the common services travellers book via a travel consultant.
“Information collated will provide greater market insights to better understand the rapidly changing consumer behaviour of travellers and help the travel industry make smart decisions to grow their business,” said Nigel Wong, MATTA’s vice president, research & technology.
An MoU was signed yesterday between Hamzah Rahmat, president of MATTA, and Laurens van den Oever, GfK’s global director, travel, for long-term collaboration that will ensure consistency in data collection, which in return will provide a better representation of the Malaysian travel landscape.
On this partnership, Hamzah commented: “As the national association of travel in Malaysia, we recognise the need to leverage technology in order to remain competitive in the market and become more relevant to the modern consumer. The partnership between MATTA and GfK is for the benefit of the Malaysian travel industry and will help the industry grow to its fullest potential.”
GfK will provide monthly reports to MATTA and the travel agencies involved in this pilot project.
Earlier this year, Gfk joined hands with Singapore’s NATAS to produce a holistic report on the Singapore tourism sector that will be launched this June. It is also collaborating with HATA in Hong Kong, with plans to tie up with JATA in Japan and AFTA in Australia for big data analytics support.
