The Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (MATTA) had a successful MATTA Travel Exchange Mart (MTEX) 2019 in partnership with Tourism Malaysia held on 27 – 28 April 2019 at the Everly Hotel, Putrajaya.
The 2-day business-to-business trade event held in conjunction with the Federation of ASEAN Travel Associations (FATA) Convention 2019 which was attended by over 200 participants from the local and foreign tourism industry was officiated by Dato' Haji Zainuddin Abdul Wahab, Senior Director Strategic Planning of Tourism Malaysia. Also present at the event were FATA President Mingkwan Metmowlee and Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) Acting President Pradip Lulla.
MATTA President Datuk Tan Kok Liang said, “The MTEX served as a platform for Malaysian inbound tourism players to sell and market domestic products to outbound tour operators from ASEAN countries and India and establish business networking and partnerships for better business working conditions to inspire more tourists to choose Malaysia as their next holiday destination.”
“We had successfully gathered a total of 82 Malaysian travel industry players consisting of 49 travel agents, 17 hotels, 11 product owners and 5 State Tourism Organisations and showcasing the wide range of attractive variety of tourism products and services to over 150 buyers from ASEAN countries from Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar, Philippines, Cambodia including India.”
“The first MTEX was organised 12 years ago in Malacca, and recently revived given its potential to boost tourist arrivals from ASEAN countries and India in line with Visit Malaysia Year 2020 to attract 30 million tourists and RM100 billion in tourist receipts.”
“MATTA membership with FATA as international member is significant to the industry as it allows domestic tourism promotion to over 7,700 travel agencies through the FATA members within the ASEAN region that serves more than 622 million population.”
“The synergy of ASEAN countries to encourage intra-ASEAN travel and strengthen ASEAN’s tourism industry with inter-connected fundamentals such as direct air connectivity, road and rail linkages, visa free policy and mobility of skilled tourism workforce allows greater impact in promoting Malaysia tourism industry.”
“MATTA as the leading and largest national travel Association in Malaysia with over 3,600 members and growing, will continue to organise beneficial events and programmes aim to promote domestic tourism to take Malaysia tourism industry to greater heights.”
“We thank you to all our sponsors and partners, Tourism Malaysia, Penang Global, Tourism Selangor, Sarawak Tourism Board and Desaru Coast and we look forward for your continued partnership in future events to come,” concluded Tan.
During the event, MATTA announced a joint venture with Grabini Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. for the development of the MATTA Tourism Industry Distribution and Booking Platform, designed as an online marketplace for the tourism industry to streamline inventory information from supporting sub-sectors for the benefit of the tourism industry.