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Malaysia throws new focus on Chinese tourists in 2015

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Malaysia’s tourism authorities are re-positioning the nation in a bid to promote itself to Chinese tourists, particularly with the launch of its Malaysia Year of Festivals 2015 (MyFest 2015) campaign.Through the festivities, the nation hopes to target of 36 million tourist arrivals with RM168 billion tourist receipts in the year 2020. MyFest 2015 was announced by the prime minister of Malaysia in his 2015 Budget speech where the campaign was aimed at boosting the tourism sector. It was also created to maintain the Malaysia brand as the top of the mind tourist destination with a target of receiving 29.4 million tourist arrivals and RM89 billion tourist receipts.Quoted on the Borneo Post, Tourism and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz said that rather than expanding to new markets, Malaysia’s expansion of marketing activities will still be focused on the China market. One crucial step Malaysia has taken to reach its target is to have dropped the visa fees for Chinese nationals.Currently, despite the cost of a visa application for a Chinese citizen at the Malaysian Embassy in Beijing being RMB80 (nearly RM46), outsourcing and collection fees to third parties has led to visa fees increasing to RMB400 (RM229). Meanwhile, Malaysians applying to visit China need to pay RM85 at the Republic's Kuala Lumpur visa office.Aziz was quoted saying that the country has missed out on approximately 540,000 tourists from China in 2014. He attributed it to the the tragic disappearance of flight MH370 where many of the passengers were Chinese nationals, as well as the kidnapping of a Chinese tourist in Sabah.Advertising + Marketing has reached out to the Ministry of Tourism and Culture in Malaysia for further details on its marketing plans.

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