'Missing plane has not led to dip in travel to Malaysia'

The case of the Malaysia Airlines' plane going missing has not had much impact on tourist and business travel to that country and load factors for the airline have not seen any drastic drop, a senior Malaysian government official said today.
"Some business travellers may have opted for alternative carriers, but large tour groups have gone (to Malaysia) as usual. Leisure and vacation tourism have also remained at the same levels," Tourism Malaysia Director General Mirza Mohammad Taiyab told reporters here.
Replying to questions on the missing plane, which had 239 people on board, he said that passenger load factors, including that of Malaysia Airlines, have "not shown any drastic reduction. There is no major setback."

His comments came on the 13th day of the plane's disappearance and hours after Australian military-led search aircraft and ships were dispatched to check whether two objects -- one as large as 24-m long -- found in southern Indian Ocean belonged to the wreckage of the missing Boeing 777.
Mirza, who is here with an airline-travel trade delegation for a tourism roadshow, however, refrained from giving any further information saying that the details of the search and rescue operations were being shared from Kuala Lumpur.
Over the last 15 years, India has emerged as one of the top sources of tourism in Malaysia with tourist numbers soaring from 35,000 in 1999 to 6,50,989 in 2013.

"This year, we are expecting about eight lakh tourists from India," Mirza said.

Though the demand for tourism in Malaysia remains high among Indians, the numbers have stayed stagnant over the last few years due to the falling rupee, he said.
Meanwhile, Mirza said that Malaysia was not offering visa- on-arrival for Indian tourists although India recently extended a similar facility to travellers from that country.
"Passengers to onward destinations will get transit visas, but visa-on-arrival, as of today, is still not available," Mirza said.