Association upbeat on outbound tourism market

KOTA KINABALU: The outbound tourism market this year has received encouraging response from customers, said Malaysia Chinese Tourism Association (MCTA) Sabah Chapter chairman Lawrence Wong.

He disclosed that many travel agencies had taken a more cautionary approach when organizing outbound trips about six months ago and dared not offer too many overseas tours.

As a result, he said travel agencies had to turn down many clients who wished to sign up for outbound trips during the Chinese New Year as the tours were fully booked.

He explained that local travel agencies normally started organizing Chinese New Year outbound trips six months before.

In mid-2017, Wong said the market had slowed down due to the weak Malaysian ringgit.

As such, he said many travel agencies had adopted a more cautionary approach by reducing the number of outbound tours offered.

Nonetheless, he said the ringgit had begun to recover by the end of last year, which resulted in the increase in demand for outbound tours during the Chinese New Year.

He said many of the tour groups were fully booked.

However, Wong said it was too late for travel agencies to reserve more flight tickets or hotel rooms in order to organize more outbound tours.

He said some customers who wanted to sign up for the outbound trips at the last minute were either turned down or opted for other tours instead.

On another question, Wong said the outbound tours for Chinese New Year were mainly heading for China, followed by Europe, Japan and Korea.

He was also optimistic about the outbound tourism market this year.

He believed that the number of outbound tourists would increase when the dust had settled after the 14th General Election.