KUALA LUMPUR, 4 November 2021: The Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (MATTA) announced this week its annual travel fair would make a comeback 20 to 21 November after a two-year gap.
The fair’s last edition took place in September 2019, a few months before the first Covid-19 outbreak in China and then shortly afterwards in Thailand by late January 2020.
First reported by the Bernam News Agency, MATTA’s honorary secretary-general Nigel Wong told an online press conference, the show would concentrate on promoting domestic tourism as states begin to open for residents to visit. Malaysia will begin the long journey to reopening its borders to foreign tourists in mid-November, starting with Langkawi, a holiday island in north Malaysia. Entry will initially be limited to foreign nationals from 10 countries, including Russians who will visit the island on direct charter flights.
In the meantime, a cut-down version of the MATTA Fair that during better times attracted more than a thousand travel and hospitality providers from Malaysia and around the world will take place 1000 to 2000, 20 to 21 November, at the World Trade Centre (WTC) Kuala Lumpur.
According to Bernama, just a few national tourist offices from Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Japan, Turkey and Uganda will be represented at the show. In pre-Covid-19 times the show was dominated by booths from Singapore, Indonesia, China and India with a massive turnout of outbound travel firms sell heavily discounted overseas travel packages to Malaysians.”
The 49th edition of the MATTA Fair will be held on a smaller scale in Hall 3 and 4 of the WTC. Hall 4 is known as Malaysia Hall, where nearly all state tourism organisations and domestic travel and tourism products will be available. Most of the international tourism players will be in Hall 3.
The fair has received strong support from state tourism organisations, namely Sabah, Terengganu, Sarawak, Pahang, Selangor, Johor, Kedah, Perak and Negeri Sembilan.
(Source: Bernama)
