The mysterious disappearance of the Malaysian Airlines flight is going to hurt the Malaysia tourism numbers badly. Chinese tourists are cancelling their tours and bookings to Malaysia imposing a probable travel boycott.
According to the Mainland travel agencies a sharp drop in the number of visitors to Malaysia is expected in the coming months. “In the two weeks after the incident, we have seen the number of clients from northern China going to Malaysia declining 50 percent compared with the same period last year, including group and independent travelers,” said Dun Jidong, a senior marketing manager at Ctrip.com, China’s largest travel booking website.
According to Tourism Malaysia, 1.79 million Chinese visited the country last year, a nearly 15 per cent annual increase.
China is the third largest source of visitors for Malaysia, in which tourism is the sixth contributor of its gross domestic product.
Although it is the off-season to go to Malaysia, the travel agencies reports that there is almost zero travel inquiries to Malaysia. Moreover, the flight MH 318/319 which was renamed from MH 370/371 between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing will also be put on hold due to low passenger numbers from May 2.
