After tourism activities were allowed to resume when the Recovery Movement Control Order was implemented on June 10, the domestic tourism industry showed encouraging progress.

The average occupancy levels in many city hotels and resorts across the country are encouraging, in particular in places offering natural attractions like islands, beaches, highlands, or forests, said Datuk Seri Nancy Shukri Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture.

She said that 180,000 passenger seats have been sold for domestic travel promotions by AirAsia airline between 10 and 28 June this year for travel between July and September.

“The weekly trend for accommodation also showed an increase compared to the week before. Although the increase is not drastic, it is a positive indication,” she said during the question-and-answer session at the Dewan Rakyat.

She answered a question from Yamani Hafez Mussa (BN-Sipitang) concerning the response to the government's national tourism campaign after COVID-19 by tourist operators and the general public.

Initiatives from domestic tourism industry stakeholders by means of special packages with attractive hotel promotion prices, flight tickets, and entrance tickets for tourism product and destination shows the positive development.

In the meantime, Nancy said that the RM90 million allocation for the next VM campaign is also retained following the canceled Visit Malaysia 2020 (VM2020) in March last.

The ministry also tracks the countries that collaborated with Malaysia as part of the group of green zone COVID-19, while VM2020 was canceled.

She answered Ahmad Hassan (Warisan-Papar)'s additional question, who wanted to know the ministry plans for the campaign allocation provided.