By Asia Samachar | Malaysia |
Malaysia’s largest travel association is calling for visa-on-arrival for Indian tourists to overcome recent month-long service disruption of the eVisa portal resulting with tourists from the continent diverting to Indonesia.
Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (MATTA) has expressed concern over the eVisa portal disruption which it claims has resulted in losses of more than RM20 – 30 million.
“We are given to understand that, in September, approximately 23,000 Indian tourists opted to travel to Bali instead of Malaysia due to the difficulties in securing a Visa to Malaysia,” said MATTA president Tan Kok Liang in a statement.
The association noted that apart from Asean, India is now the top contributor to foreign arrivals into Malaysia with 71,481 Indian tourists arrivals between January to June 2022 alone.
Three visa centers were setup in Chennai, New Delhi and Mumbai during the service disruption in an attempt to compensate for the situation.
“Given the vastness of the Indian subcontinent, opening only three visa centers is far from practical.
“If Malaysia is to remain competitive and attractive to such lucrative markets we have to look at more practical long-term measures. As such the government must consider the immediate benefits of implementing a direct visa-on-arrival facility for Indian tourists,” Tan added.
Thailand and Indonesia already provides visa-on-arrival facilities to Indian tourists.
MATTA said it has joined Tourism Malaysia to organise a number of roadshows to India over the last few months and the Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) convention was recently held in Kuching, Sarawak, to promote Borneo to the tourist Indian markets.
MATTA is the largest national travel association in Malaysia, with close to 3,000 members, comprising local tour and travel agents and overseas affiliations.
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