Inbound players across Malaysia are seeing a more encouraging summer travel season for Indian travellers, with forward bookings showing reduced price sensitivity and a return of both FIT and corporate incentive interest.
India is among the top five tourism source markets for Malaysia.
Despite higher airfares as a result of limited air capacity, A Aruldas, managing director of Tourland Travel, said demand has been “encouraging” ever since the start of the Indian summer holidays. He noted that Kuala Lumpur, Genting and Langkawi remain hot favourites among his Indian customers.
Tourland Travel has also just completed an incentive travel group from India – a 220-pax event hosted by a travel insurance company. The group visited Kuala Lumpur, Genting and Port Dickson.
Comparing this Indian summer season with pre-pandemic times, Amritha Dijith, CEO, Apollo Asia Travel Group, said there is now a larger FIT segment. This year, 90 per cent of the agency’s Indian customers are FITs, while pre-pandemic there was a more balanced split between FITs and group travellers, with the latter making up around 40 per cent of the company’s clientele.
Amritha also gladly noted that Indian travellers were also not as price sensitive as they used to be.
“The weak ringgit against the US dollar is an added advantage, as most B2B agents quote their packages in US dollars,” she added.
Indeed, despite many travel agents raising their package rates this year due to escalating operating costs, Ganneesh Ramaa, vice-president, Destination Explore, said Malaysia remains an affordable and attractive destination for Indian travellers.
Thus far, forward bookings are looking promising for Destination Explore. Ganneesh recalled that his agent partners in India had responded positively to news of Malaysia’s reopening and the removal of pre-departure and on-arrival Covid-19 tests and quarantine requirements.
However, for Malaysia to rebuild Indian travel demand, Ganneesh said air capacity and frequency of flights must improve, while the process of obtaining a visa should be shortened to 24 hours and fees lowered. Meanwhile, he also urged authorities to address the challenge of manpower shortages at hotels and restaurants in Malaysia.
The lengthy visa processing time, which could take several days, has resulted in two FIT tour booking cancellations for MVT Travel. Managing director V Kunaseelan said individuals could not get their visa on time, which is a problem since travellers from India tend to book very last minute.
To reengage this critical source market, Tourism Malaysia recently led a delegation of 15 tour operators, three hoteliers, three product owners and three airlines to South Asia’s Travel & Tourism Exchange, commonly known in the trade as SATTE.
Prior to his new appointment, Ali was a key member of the pre-opening team of Dream Doha, as director of sales, for Dream Hotel Group’s flagship luxury hotel in Qatar.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said on May 23 that mass vaccinations are not needed against the monkeypox outbreak that has spread beyond Africa.
Latest reports this week state that there are about 200 confirmed and suspected cases across at least a dozen countries, most of them being in Europe.
The US and the UK are making some vaccines available while Germany is mulling options for vaccinations, isolation and quarantine. On May 23, Belgium ordered mandatory monkeypox quarantine; it is the first country to do so.
A senior official at WHO said measures like good hygiene, safe sexual behaviour, contact tracing and isolation will help control its spread, and noted that the virus does not spread very easily.
In a statement issued May 21, WHO said epidemiological investigations are ongoing, and reported cases have no established travel links to endemic areas. As the situation is evolving and surveillance is expanded in non-endemic countries, WHO expects more cases of monkeypox will be identified.