It is quite evident that haze has taken a toll on tourism off late and especially from China as the prolonged haze is yet to stay. The health effect and proactive haze in Malaysia have swept off the incoming tourist from across the nation and mainly from China with the increasing health risk due to the haze speeded all over. According to the local tour operators they are already facing and eventually registering a major drop in tourist arrivals with visitors from China already recording a 20% slump.

Many parts of Malaysia is still continuing to register poor visibility while health cases due to the haze spike. The main cause of the smog is said to be the forest fire and the authorities in Malaysia and Indonesia are continuously struggling to put out the forest fires which is still prevalent. Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents MATTA inbound and domestic VP Jimmy Thoo said: “Some inbound agents claimed to have experienced a 20% drop in customers from China (due to the haze),”.

The worsening air quality has affected the number of inbound tourists, including the likelihood of flight booking cancellations.  The haze has eventually disrupted many flights from different parts of the country and also has limited the movement of travellers and forced them to stay indoors hindering the day to day activities. Angie Ng, Malaysia Inbound Chinese Association president was also quoted saying that over 100 Chinese tour groups opted to divert their holiday plans to Vietnam, the Philippines and Thailand.

The cancellation of bookings and specifically the Chinese tourist cancellations could cost Malaysia millions in revenue. Official figures from the authorities show the receipts from Chinese tourists reached RM7.08 billion for the January-June 2019 period, 22.5% higher than RM5.78 billion recorded in the corresponding period last year making it the world’s most populous nation and Malaysia’s third-largest tourist market. According to Tourism Malaysia’s figures, China is considered the second-largest contributor to Malaysia’s tourism receipts.

Based on the Malaysian Air Pollutant Index Management System, the hourly table showed that the API reading in Kuala Lumpur had dropped to 94, which was considered a moderate level, as of 3 pm yesterday. The highest recorded API reading was 208 on Sept 19.