Malaysia set to lure Chinese tourists, partners with Weibo

For the first time , Malaysian Inbound Tourism Association (MITA) has partnered with Chinese social media network Weibo to promote Malaysia as a tourist destination.According to MITA, it is estimated that more than 200 millions mainland Chinese will travel overseas by 2020. This year alone, Chinese tourist will be spending more than US $299 billion on travel.“We foresee the change of travel habits will take place for Chinese travellers. There will be more young travellers depending on social media testimony for reference where to go for their next holiday destination and with the collaboration between MITA and WEIBO , tourism players in Malaysia will be able to leverage the strong social media’s platform,” Uzaidi Udanis , deputy president, MITA said.Weibo has more than 600 millions registered users and 271 millions of active users . Through the platform , more than 45 millions Weibo’s users are frequent travellers and Malaysia is one of the top discussed travel destination in Weibo, according to MITA.To lure Chinese tourists, MITA is planning to launch “Malaysia Day Sale” campaign which on 31 August this year, on the social platform.This tourism push in is inline with the government’s target of attracting more than 8 million Chinese tourist over five years.(Photo courtesy: Shutterstock)