Tourism Malaysia is maintaining its target for the Visit Malaysia 2020 (VM2020) campaign, despite the industry’s sluggish performance in the first quarter (1Q20) with figures adversely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Tourism Malaysia DG Datuk Musa Yusof said no revision has been made at this point to VM2020’s target of achieving 30 million tourist arrivals and RM100 billion in tourist receipts.

“At the moment, we are retaining the same targets for VM2020. We do not have the official figures since the outbreak. However, we predict the figures will reflect a reduction in the number of foreign tourists to Malaysia.

“Judging from the global travel trend that has plummeted based on hotel and tour cancellations following the outbreak, we expect that the figures for 1Q20 may not be as per our expectations,” Musa told The Malaysian Reserve (TMR) in an email recently.

He said fears stemming from negative sentiments on travelling, particularly among tourists from affected countries, have contributed to the drop in arrivals of foreign visitors.

Musa also said the lockdown of many cities in China and Italy, as well as various travel restrictions imposed by other nations, have affected tourism in Malaysia.