GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd (GHIAL), Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad (MAHB) and Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board (MTPB) today joined hands for promotion of tourism from the "catchment area" of Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) here to Malaysia.
The efforts are aimed at enhancing the visibility of 'Destination Malaysia' in Hyderabad and the "catchment area" of RGIA' -- Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, parts of Odisha and Karnataka.
SGK Kishore, CEO, GHIAL, Datuk Mohd Badlisham Ghazali, Managing Director, MAHB, and Dato' Sri Abdul Khani Daud, Deputy Director General (Promotion), MITBP signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) in the presence of Dato' Hidayat Abdul Hamid, High Commissioner of Malaysia, at an event here.
The tri-partite MoA involves collaborative market research, strategy development, promotional campaigns and marketing efforts, according to GMR.
The trend shows that approximately 1,00,000 passengers are going to Malaysia every year through various airlines from Hyderabad and the traffic has grown by 28 per cent CAGR in the last five years, Kishore said.
There is still an untapped potential, he said.
"I think this is the first time where the government tourism board and both the airports are coming together to see how strategically we can change the entire tourism map of tourists who are going to Malaysia," Kishore said.
The promotion of tourism would help airlines operating between Hyderabad and Malaysia, he said.
The MoA is a strategic collaboration for GHIAL and not a transaction involving typical tourism road shows, he said.
"We are also trying to identify other potential destinations and enter similar arrangements. We shortlisted a few destinations, Mauritius, Central Europe. We will be talking to those tourism boards and have similar arrangements," he said.
The flying time between Hyderabad and Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur is about four hours. Malaysia Airlines and AirAsia Berhad operate daily flights between the two cities.
Due to the growing demand for travel on the route, there is a considerable interest by existing and other airlines to add capacity on the route, GMR said.
India is the sixth largest tourism source in Malaysia, and a vast potential in India is yet to be tapped, Ghazali said.
He hoped that the collaboration would help in strengthening economic ties between India and Malaysia in the years to come.
Describing the MoA as unprecedented, the High Commissioner said people-to-people contacts strengthen bilateral relations between India and Malaysia.
Daud said he hoped to see the number of tourists to Malaysia to go up to ten lakh from the current around 6.5 lakh.
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