At the Malaysian High Commission in London, business partners gathered for the roll out of the Visit Malaysia 2020 campaign in the UK. The event at Belgrave Square was attended by High Commissioner Mohamad Sadik Kethergany, Shahrir Ali of Tourism Malaysia and the Malaysia Airlines UK team.

The Visit Malaysia 2020 campaign is a platform that has been developed to attract a record number of visitors and to position Malaysia as a destination of choice for leisure and business tourists. Overall, tourism is performing well in 2019, with the number of tourist arrivals to Malaysia increasing by 4.9% to 13.35 million in the first six months of this year, from 12.73 million in 2018. The UK continues to perform as a key market, and ranks the second highest for tourist expenditure per capita, after Saudi Arabia.

Through the campaign, Tourism Malaysia will be organising a number of global campaigns and initiatives with the support of key partners, which will drive business into the country. In the UK, they will be working with Malaysia Airlines, which has been an official partner of Visit Malaysia 2020 since 2018, supporting the campaign by increasing global connectivity with Malaysia.

Working with Tourism Malaysia, Malaysia Airlines is also involved in the promotion of the wider campaign, demonstrating its commitment to this in July 2019 by becoming the first airline to take the Visit Malaysia 2020 logo to the skies on the exterior of its aircraft.

Commenting on the campaign, Datuk Mohamad Sadik Kethergany, high commissioner of Malaysia to the UK and Northern Ireland said: “Tourism is among the biggest and fastest-growing sectors in the global economy, and it plays an important role in job creation and export revenue. The industry continues to be a significant contributor to the country’s economic growth through the positive growth of tourist arrivals.”