Helping the Tourism Sector to Weather the Storm

Datuk Musa Yusof, Director-General, Tourism Malaysia

As the Director General of Tourism Malaysia, Datuk Musa Yusof is resolved in facing the challenges head on to help ensure Malaysia’s tourism industry remain robust.

Background

Being a government scholar, Datuk Musa Yusof was part of the last batch of students whom the government directly sent to the United States of America to study after obtaining their Malaysian Certificate of Education (SPM). Initially worked in the private sector, Datuk Musa’s actual background was in Economics, with emphasis on International Business. “But to me, it doesn’t matter because we can learn new things and increase our knowledge in different areas. I feel indebted to the government because it helped me turn into who I am today. The demands of the tourism industry allow me to make use of my talent to the fullest,” he admits, magnanimously.

Datuk Musa joined Tourism Malaysia – when it was still referred to as Tourism Development Corporation (TDC) – in 17 July 1990, the year when Malaysia organised its first Visit Malaysia Year (VMY) campaign. “TDC that time required around 100 to 200 young personnel to assist with VMY. 25 of us who came in studied overseas; perhaps the government was looking for candidates who think unconventionally and exposed to different ideas,” he reminisces.

“Tourism is something that we have to enjoy, we need to have passion to work in this industry because working in tourism is similar to working eight days a week and 25 hours a day. You are required to sacrifice your Saturday and Sunday because many travel fairs involving consumers are held during weekends,” confesses Datuk Musa.

“When I started working at Tourism Malaysia, Malaysia was a touristreceiving country; but today, Malaysia has become a tourist-generating country or source market for neighbouring ASEAN nations, including mediumand long-haul destinations. We have become one of the biggest contributors to China, Japan, and South Korea in terms of tourist arrivals. From this, we can see that tourism is not a one-way traffic, and should flow both ways,” views Datuk Musa.

Back in 1990, the major destinations within the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) region were mainly Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia. Nowadays, competition within ASEAN becomes more intense as other nations like Vietnam, Cambodia and the Philippines are rising to become tourism destinations in their own right, with growing populations that have the propensity to travel due to rising income. After having said that, all countries within ASEAN do assist one another, attempting to answer the call of promoting the entire region as a single destination.

Achievements

Datuk Musa assumes the position as Director General since December 2018. “The achievements received over the past year is not my effort alone, but attributed to the teamwork shown by all of Tourism Malaysia staff. I am merely the captain of the ship who guides the team to wherever it is going. In 2019, my team and I worked together to chart Visit Malaysia Year 2020 (VM2020) after obtaining the approval from the seventh Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad,” he recalls. Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, VM2020 has been called off.

For the first time in the history of tourism in Malaysia, a facility to assist tourism industry players to promote Malaysia domestically and internationally called the Matching Grant is introduced by the government. “The tourism player puts in 50%, we put in 50%. We propose that each travel and tourism company be eligible to receive up to the maximum of MYR200,000. As for the travel and tourism events that the company participates locally, it is entitled to receive between MYR10,000 and MYR15,000. Tourism Malaysia helps Malaysian tourism industry players to cover accommodations, airline fares, and other relevant costs when they follow Tourism Malaysia overseas for promotional campaigns. For the first round, the government has allocated MYR15 million for the grant, and so far, MYR3 million of that amount has been disbursed,” declares Datuk Musa.

In 2019, Malaysia recorded 26.1 million international tourist arrivals (1% increase) compared to the the previous year, while tourist expenditure grew by 2.4% from 2018. During the first half of 2019, Malaysia managed to reach 94% of the targets set.

Readying the industry post COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic hit the tourism industry hard. Malaysia enforces the Movement Control Order (MCO) beginning mid-March 2020 to contain the spread of the virus, yielding positive results since the approach lowers rate of infections over the successive weeks. Throughout MCO, Tourism Malaysia carries on showcasing Malaysian destinations accompanied by UNWTO’s hashtag #traveltomorrow through social media platforms to remain at the top of future tourists’ minds.

The travel and tourism industry is expected to hit the ground running once the COVID-19 is over. As such, the first thing that Tourism Malaysia does is to organise public relations activities and social media promotions with local media to boost domestic tourism, launch domestic travel packages, and kick-off special programmes like Jelajah CutiCuti Malaysia Travel Media Buddy and New Edge Media Publicity to uncover new destinations in the country.

For the past 20 years, Tourism Malaysia has been promoting Cuti-Cuti Malaysia campaign to encourage Malaysians to travel domestically. After the Asian financial crisis, Tourism Malaysia realised that the tourism industry needs Malaysians to spur its growth since they readily represent a captured market. As such, domestic tourism generated MYR72 billion receipts in 2018. After COVID-19, Tourism Malaysia pushes for companies in Malaysia to organise their meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions (MICE) within the country to induce multiplier effect.

Tourism Malaysia also invites media representatives from neighbouring countries such as Singapore, Thailand and Brunei to highlight tourism products that are easily accessible via Express Rail Link, Mass Rapid Transit and Light Rapid Transit systems. Datuk Musa notifies that ASEAN and shorthaul markets are top contributors to the Malaysian tourism industry for the past three years. “We realised that we want to increase ASEAN tourists to come to Malaysia since 68% of tourist arrivals are from ASEAN countries. We want to enhance cross-border tourism between Malaysia and Singapore, Thailand, Brunei and Indonesia,” he says.

Datuk Musa further elaborates that even though overland tourist arrivals from Singapore into Malaysia decreased in 2019, the number of Singaporeans flying out from Singapore to Malaysian destinations increased, triggering Tourism Malaysia to change its strategy. “We are encouraging more Singaporeans to fly into Malaysia, because those who fly tend to stay longer, especially when they go to places like Sarawak and Sabah, contributing more to the local economy,” he iterates.

The reason why Tourism Malaysia encourages tourists from neighbouring ASEAN countries to fly into Malaysia is due to the availability of airline seat capacity, especially on Malaysiabased airlines. Tourism Malaysia also works with hotels on campaigns encouraging tourists who stay for two nights in Malaysia stand to receive an additional night free. “After speaking to hoteliers, we learned that vacant rooms are perishable products. Empty or vacant rooms today can’t be kept until tomorrow because it is an inventory that needs to be sold today, so we work with hotels to offer tourists ‘stay-for-two-nights-and-get-onenight-free’. We top it with provide shopping vouchers to sweeten the deal,” continues Datuk Musa.

Brunei is another excellent example. “When Brunei government revised its salary system from monthly to fortnightly payment, the Bruneian spending habits changed accordingly and affected Bruneians’ propensity to travel to Malaysia. In turn, Tourism Malaysia courts Bruneians by allowing many coaches from Brunei to enter Malaysia, for example Miri,” notes Datuk Musa.

Then, why all the fuss about China pre-COVID-19? Though this populous East Asian nation contributes just 11% of tourist arrivals to Malaysia, China is important because it churns out 120 million outbound travellers per year, with 30% (around 40 million) of them heading to South East Asia, making tourism players within the region salivate to get a slice of that huge pie.

“Moreover, Chinese tourists are good spenders. If you look at Europe and the Americas, even the tourism players there welcome Chinese outbound tourists, let alone Malaysia since we are located closer to China and enjoy good relations with the nation since the 1970s. Outbound Chinese travellers feel at ease when being in Malaysia because some Malaysians can speak their language. This market, including India, represents the low hanging fruit to the Malaysian tourism industry because China and India represent the biggest source markets in the world,” answers Datuk Musa.

When Datuk Musa first started working in Tourism Malaysia back in 1990, Japan was the biggest source market in Asia because the Japanese government asked their citizens to travel overseas and circulate their currency internationally through spending. However, China has taken over the leading role. By 2030, it is forecasted that India will become the second biggest outbound market after China. “Earlier, we had difficulty with China due to the visa requirement. After discussing and convincing the Malaysian government, Malaysia eventually introduces e-visa to mainland Chinese and Indian citizens. That is why we saw many of them coming to Malaysia because we eased the multiple entry visa facilitation. As a result, the number of tourist arrivals from India increased 22% in 2019,” he clarifies.

Datuk Musa mentions that Malaysian carriers have already used up all of their rights to fly to India; they could not get additional seats and have exhausted their approved number of flight frequencies. None of the India-based airlines flew into Malaysia except Indigo, which flies to various Indian cities and controls 42% of the market share in India. Since Indigo flies to various parts of India, Malaysia may be able to capture tourists from India’s second- and third-tier cities via Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru.

Apart from ASEAN and South Asia, once the COVID-19 threat is over, Tourism Malaysia will resume targeting the Middle East market because the top five per capita tourism expenditure in Malaysia are mostly dominated by Middle Eastern tourists. Many Middle Eastern airlines such as Etihad, Qatar Airways, Oman Air, and Air Arabia fly to Malaysia, making them ideal partners for collaboration. “If you were to survey the Middle Eastern market, its favourite destination is still Malaysia. Tourists from this market feel at ease coming to Malaysia because halal food is abundant and facilities for prayers are easily available. Malaysia has moved much earlier into educational tourism, whereby many Middle Eastern students choose Malaysia as the place for study, and these students’ families come over to visit them,” Datuk Musa says.

Another possible market is Central Asia, which is progressing economically since the region has opened up and is rich in resources. Air Astana from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan Airways have been flying to Malaysia, allowing wider access. Despites its small base, Tourism Malaysia realises that tourist arrivals from this region jumped up to 83% in 2019 compared to the previous year. It makes sense for Tourism Malaysia to continuously participate in Kazakhstan International Travel Fair, Tashkent Travel Fair, and promotional activities in Tajikistan. To travellers in these countries, Malaysia is still considered new. Datuk Musa foresees that if there are not enough capacity to bring Central Asian tourists to Malaysia, charter flights can be arranged. “We are also preparing to bring in 6,000 Russian travellers to Malaysia in 2020. If there are not enough aircrafts, Malaysia-based carriers can lease their planes as charter flights,” he adds.

One more region in focus is Eastern Europe, which Tourism Malaysia has been penetrating for the past 30 years by participating in travel fairs like TT Warsaw in Poland and Holiday World in Prague. “When we first explored the region, it was more of creating awareness considering Eastern Europe was just emerging from the fall of the Iron Curtain. Due to economic progress, Eastern Europeans of today have higher income, hence the propensity to travel is there. It is time for Malaysia to tap into this region. After studying it, we find that we should start with the region’s business travellers. Since we have established close ties with Middle Eastern carriers that fly all over the world, Eastern Europeans can use them to fly to Malaysia,” Datuk Musa ruminates.

Promoting Malaysia

“I have been involved in all Visit Malaysia campaigns, but if you were to ask any Tourism Malaysia official, every year is actually Visit Malaysia Year,” laughs Datuk Musa, as he urges Malaysian citizens to actively promote the country to fellow friends and family. “Imagine if each of Malaysia’s 32 million population promotes Malaysia and invites one person from overseas, we are bound to easily reach our arrivals target,” he calculates.

Of late, Tourism Malaysia promotes the campaign differently. “In the past, we managed to get the kind of budget we want, but this time we have to think about how to raise our own promotional budget. Beginning 2015, Tourism Malaysia’s budget allocation has been slashed up to 70% compared to before, requiring us to change the way we do things. Prior to 2015, Tourism Malaysia used to pay for everything when going abroad to do promotions. These days, we need all industry players to rally together to chip in a fund so that they can join us whenever we are involved in travel fairs overseas. In other countries, for example Thailand, the private sector and the government work in tandem by putting in a fund,” asserts Datuk Musa.

“When we advertise, as marketers, the products are not ours but belong to the private sector and other parties. From 2015 onwards, the private sector in Malaysia has accepted the fact that it has to fork out some money to be with us for overseas promotions. We work on strategic or smart partnership basis with various parties for win-win situation – the parties get what they want, Tourism Malaysia gets the number of arrivals – which we did with the airlines,” Datuk Musa justifies.

Tourism Malaysia needs to create the demand, but not directly involved in coming up with tourism products and packages, which by right should be done by the private sector. “Tourism Malaysia comes in to assist industry players in determining whether the products are for domestic or international; packaging the products closely with them; and cataloguing the products properly so that it is easy for consumers to see and purchase the packages,” he explains.

“We have changed the way we do things by going tactical, which means being price-driven. We partner with airlines or outbound tour operators from source markets, for example TUI UK, which sell to its customers at £880 per person to experience Malaysia. As a result, TUI gets the profit, we get the arrivals. Of course, once the travellers are in Malaysia and start spending, we get the tourism receipts. That is why in 2019, Malaysia welcomed 7,900 TUI UK customers. We foster business and strategic partnerships with other parties as well, for example Spainand Portugal-based TUI Iberia after returning from FITUR in early 2020. What we currently do is to work closely with destination management companies in creating market demand for Malaysia through advertising, digital technology, and email blasts, among others. Our marketing approach is now better targeted because I can tell you how many travellers exactly come to Malaysia,” Datuk Musa expounds in detail.

Considering 90% of Tourism Malaysia’s promotion is done outside Malaysia, it does appear as if not much promotion is being done within Malaysia’s borders. “Due to our limited budget, we are reducing our traditional approach to marketing but increasing the use of digital, which is why you don’t see many advertisements through traditional mediums anymore. As we move deeper into digital by being present on social media platforms, including review sites like Tripadvisor, we need to get ready,” advises Datuk Musa.

Tourism Malaysia leverages on technology to allow the Malaysian tourism industry players upload their packages directly onto its website. The organisation embarks on strategic partnership with Malaysia Airlines through the carrier’s virtual CutiCuti Malaysia site, managed by MHholidays. Since travellers can book Malaysia Airlines flights and hotel packages directly, the results and effectiveness of this campaign can be clearly measured.

Datuk Musa insists that the Malaysian tourism industry needs to strike a balance between leisure, which makes up to 60% of arrivals, and MICE or business travel, including niche tourism, which makes up the rest. Tourism Malaysia’s areas of focus are ecotourism, represented by rainforests, highlands, mountains, sun and sea, including marine life. Travellers of today prefer to go to destinations that preserve the environment, as can be seen in Boracay, which was closed temporarily for cleaning up and regeneration. “We learned our lesson way earlier by demolishing the resorts on Sipadan island, moved them to Mabul so that Sipadan can revive, and determined the island’s carrying capacity. Travellers need permit to enter Sipadan and register with the marine park ranger so that the number of divers to Sipadan can be capped at 127 per day. Only then marine life can regenerate,” he contends.

Beyond 2020

“Beyond 2020, we need to continue protecting the environment and our valuable products, making sure that all of us ‘Think Tourism, Act Tourism’ and understand that tourism isn’t simply about making quick money. If we go ahead with that, we can prosper. I am advising the supply side of the tourism industry to look into new products, either tangible or intangible, so that we remain relevant and competitive,” remarks Datuk Musa.

Tourism Malaysia is seriously looking into new forms of tourism because travellers are increasingly sophisticated and prefer experiential tourism compared to typical package tours when exploring destinations. “Travellers do not want to simply be herded around on tour buses like before. They prefer enriching experiences that they can bring back home for them to cherish,” Datuk Musa attests.

Sunrise at Cameron Highlands Tea Plantation, Pahang.

Image by Photo Unit, Tourism Malaysia.

One form of experiential tourism is the Malaysian homestay programme, introduced 30 years ago. When travellers choose to stay at one of the homestay programmes, they are not only getting accommodation but exposure to local culture too. Some homestays, for example the one in Bongawan area in Sabah, receives MYR2.2 million income per year. On the same note, Taman Sedia Homestay in Cameron Highlands receives at least MYR2 million per year. All 217 homestay programmes in Malaysia encompassing 4,152 homestay operators cash in a total of MYR23 million per year.

“In the future, I love to see the Malaysian local governments and authorities to be directly involved in tourism. I remember five years ago that I challenged Negeri Sembilan to form its own tourism association and tourist guide association, despite the state having its own unique products. The state now has formed both associations that offer packages. Even Seremban City Council claims that it has come up with city’s tourism products. Other councils that are active in developing tourism are Selama District Council in Perak, which successfully created a product called Kota Raja Bersiung (Fort of the Fanged King), Sik in Kedah and Taiping in Perak. These councils understand that tourism is 25% product and 75% storytelling, so local councils can market their products by building on stories or legends surrounding them. Besides, local councils have the authority to issue business licences and conduct enforcement within their jurisdiction,” cites Datuk Musa.

British-Inspired Giant Well at Kampung Jalan Baru, Selama, Perak.

Image by www.hanshanis.com

“To me, based on my experience, we should emulate Paris, where tourism is decentralised, broken down into several levels: federal, provincial and local authority. Local district councils in Malaysia should not wait for the federal government to develop products for them, but instead be proactive by working in tandem with other councils within the same state, determine each of the councils’ unique selling points, find ways to complement each other, and integrate under the state. Travellers who come to the state would then be able to experience what each district offers, making them stay longer because they can simply move on to the next district for a different experience. Once all of the districts and state have developed their products, Tourism Malaysia can come in to promote them as part of the Malaysian experience,” Datuk Musa concludes.

With Datuk Musa Yusof at the helm, Tourism Malaysia is sure to successfully weather the storm, helping the Malaysian tourism industry to emerge stronger and more resilient than ever.