STORY: Malaysia pursues holistic strategy to boost Chinese tourist arrivals
SHOOTING TIME: April 5, 2024
DATELINE: April 28, 2024
LENGTH: 00:01:59
LOCATION: Kuala Lumpur
CATEGORY: SOCIETY

SHOTLIST:
1. various of the views in Malaysia
2. SOUNDBITE (English): MANOHARAN PERIASAMY, Tourism Malaysia Director-General

STORYLINE:

Malaysia is adopting a holistic approach to boost Chinese tourist arrivals, moving beyond traditional promotional methods to create an ecosystem that enhances visitors' experience.

The approach includes deploying Chinese-proficient staff at key entry points, collaborating with airlines to offer direct flights from secondary and tertiary Chinese cities, partnering with educational institutions, and utilizing Chinese social media influencers, Tourism Malaysia Director-General Manoharan Periasamy told Xinhua in a recent exclusive interview.

SOUNDBITE (English): MANOHARAN PERIASAMY, Tourism Malaysia Director-General
"Everybody wanted a share of the pie from the outbound market from China. And we also, as a part of the Southeast Asia region, we don't want to do leftover. So we have discussed, negotiated with those authorities. And finally, when we get the so-called a liberalization of a visa, we have seen tremendous growth, one from the number of tourists arrival, and secondly, about the airlines which are operating here.
We work very closely with those airlines and as well as Chinese-based operators in China. Whatever, we have embarked in a lot of joint promotion campaigns.
To facilitate them, once they're landing in Kuala Lumpur, we have set up our help desk.
We try to engage some other assistants, who can converse in Mandarin and a few other languages to become and facilitate the Chinese tourists, assist them.
We want to give a very pleasant, very seamless kind of experience.
This year, we are celebrating the 50th (anniversary) of the diplomatic relationship between China and Malaysia. It is always both-way traffic. So a lot of Malaysians also wanted to go and visit China to get to know the Chinese culture, Chinese way of life and everything, which is an appeal to the Malaysian tourists, vice versa. A lot of Chinese, as I mentioned earlier, a lot of them come to us."

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Kuala Lumpur.
(XHTV)