Recently, Tourism Malaysia launched its official Visit Malaysia 2020 (VM2020) campaign in Singapore on Tuesday. The main intention of the campaign being launched in Singapore was for aiming preponderant tourist arrivals and specifically aiming for more than 12 million tourist arrivals from the republic next year in 2020. The VM2020 campaign was launched by Malaysia’s High Commissioner to Singapore, Datuk Zainol Rahim Zainuddin, along with Senior Deputy Director, International Promotion Division (Southeast Asia) of Tourism Malaysia, Azilina Azni Zainal Abidin.

According to Edzuar Zar Ayob Azari, the Director of Tourism Malaysia Singapore, for 2019, Tourism Malaysia is expecting 12 million tourist arrivals from Singapore. “Going by the current trend, we will witness a rise 3% to 4% in tourist arrivals from Singapore this year compared to 2018,” he added while addressing the media at the VM2020 launch.

Tourism Malaysia is also confident and assured for an increase of 3% to 4% tourist arrivals from the southern neighbour for the present year of 2019.

In 2018, the arrival rate from Singapore fell almost 14.7% to 10.62 million when compared with 2017 due to reasons best known, including traffic congestion on the Johor-Singapore Causeway. Also, a major setback was the changing travel trends among Singaporeans.

Edzuar hoped that initiatives by a special committee chaired by Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad can help ease congestion on the Johor Causeway, as this could lure more tourist arrivals from Singapore.

During its first meeting, the committee said Malaysia will look into widening the Causeway and expanding the checkpoint complex in order to tackle the heavy congestion at the link between Johor and Singapore attracting tourist from Singapore.