From September 2020,Tourism Malaysia is planning to restart international promotion efforts and focus will be basically on the domestic recovery, and cutting off the publicity around the country’s efforts to combat Covid-19.

The NTO has planned to leverage social media and its overseas offices for accurate information on what the Health Ministry has been doing to flatten the curve in Malaysia and take protective measures against Covid-19. Efforts will also be made to strengthen the more than two-decade-old Malaysia Truly Asia branding and to build stronger branding within the international community for Malaysia as a preferred destination.

As part of the effort, Tourism Malaysia will work closely with industry partners to organise physical and virtual travel fairs. It will also encourage business event organisers to hold their events domestically.

Musa Yusof, director-general at Tourism Malaysia, said that once the outbreak has been contained locally, the board’s immediate plan is to “refocus on domestic tourism to increase demand for the travel trade and related services, including airlines, accommodation, land transportation, retail and F&B”.

He added that there were also plans to revive joint promotions and tactical campaigns with strategic airline partners and outbound travel operators overseas which had been put on hold due to Covid-19. This includes collaborations with domestic carriers such as Malaysia Airlines and AirAsia and foreign airlines including Turkish Airways, Emirates and Etihad.

He said that support for tour operators will also be introduced at a later stage for both overseas tour operators selling Malaysia as well as their inbound counterparts.

Post Covid-19 period, Musa envisages a growth in demand for FIT travel and experiential tourism as tourists become more sensitive to the call for social distancing and may shun group travel.