Tourism Expo Japan (TEJ) 2019, took place in the city of Osaka from Oct 23 to Oct 26, Japan for the first time. It marked the 42nd year of Tourism Malaysia’s participation in TEJ as the agency maximizes efforts to promote Visit Malaysia 2020 (VM2020) campaign in Japan.

Datuk Mohamaddin Ketapi, The Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister accompanied by Tourism Malaysia chairman Datuk Ahmad Shah Hussein Tambakau and DG Datuk Musa Yusof led a delegation of 35 government officials and private sector participants to the Tourism Expo Japan 2019.

On Oct 23, 2019, Mohamaddin delivered a welcome speech at the Asean-Japan Tourism Investment Seminar. On the next day, he launched the Malaysia Pavilion at the International Exhibition Centre, Osaka, followed by a media interview in the afternoon.

On October 24, 2019, the minister became one of the panelist at the third TEJ Ministerial Round themed “Community Vitalisation: People and Culture”, which was jointly organized by United Nations World Tourism Organisation and Japan Association of Travel Agents, and invited tourism ministers from all over the world and executives from international tourism organizations.

The event also experienced a courtesy visit of the minister of tourism of Cambodia to Mohamaddin with the main aim to strengthen bilateral relations between Malaysia and Cambodia focusing on trade, education, and tourism, altogether.

Through participation in TEJ 2019, the main aim of Malaysia is to attract a total of 480,000 Japanese tourists by the end of 2019. From January to July 2019 there was a total of 231,831 Japanese tourists who visited Malaysia, which is itself an increase of 5.9% compared to 218,940 tourists in 2018, according to the previous year’s survey report.

Japan is an important market for Malaysia in the tourism segment, specifically as it contributed 394,540 tourists to Malaysia in 2018 with RM1.67 billion in tourist expenditure, making it amongst the top 10 tourist-generating markets for the country.