Dato’ Mirza Mohammad Taiyab, Director General, Tourism Malaysia: Marketing Malaysia Relentlessly
Due to his steadfast commitment and dedication in promoting Malaysia’s tourism industry for over three decades while overcoming various challenges along the way, Dato’ Mirza Mohammad Taiyab has become one of Malaysia’s foremost marketing personalities and tourism luminaries.
Malaysia continues to be creative in promoting the destination
When it comes to marketing and promotions, few would be able to match Dato Mirza’s experience and leadership in developing effective strategies to sell Malaysia as a leading tourism destination. Since he first started with the organisation (which was then known as Tourist Development Corporation) back in 1982, promotions had always been taken seriously by the organisation.
“The purpose of tourism marketing and promotion is to popularise a particular destination or country.
To make it popular, we need to have an effective communication programme, and advertising is a major part of this communication,” he explains.
Until today, Tourism Malaysia, being the Malaysian tourism industry’s promotional and publicity arm, still continues its objective in promoting Malaysia as a leading tourism destination, especially in the wake of unfortunate incidences that involved Malaysia Airlines’ MH370 and MH17 flights in 2014. The organisation engages reputable creative agencies in developing effective, clever and relevant advertisements in selling the country as a desirable destination.
“Since advertisements yield different impacts based on their appeal to their audience, Tourism Malaysia constantly seeks and makes the best advertisements that sink in well with the audience and create the desired impact,” Dato’ Mirza shares.
During the International Tourismus-Börse (ITB) Travel Trade Show in Berlin held last March 2015, Tourism Malaysia garnered three awards, including the First Prize in the Print Category for an Advertisement that featured one of Malaysia’s icons, the intriguing wayang kulit (shadow puppets made out of leather) to target the European, American and the Australian markets.
Such award is an acclaim by the international communication experts, proving positive that the direction Tourism Malaysia took has yielded the right response, created impact and was effective. The said advertisement contains rich emotive suggestions that strongly expresses one of Malaysia’s unique essences.
One important aspect in developing impactful advertisements is to work with cutting edge creative houses that understand Tourism Malaysia’s strategic direction. Dato’ Mirza says that Tourism Malaysia had long been working with the creative agency that helped to develop the winning advertisement because of the creative and innovative ideas that it brought to the table. Having said that, he notes that it also required some time for the agency to arrive at the acclaimed level of sophistication and creativity.
Of course, Dato’ Mirza also agrees that advertisements can only go so far because they “simply trigger tourists’ interests, but we also need to convert it into actual action”. In doing so, the other aspects of marketing and promotion work in tandem with advertising to create deeper awareness towards Malaysia as a leading tourism destination through seminars, roadshows and familiarisation trips for travel agents and media, including participation in travel fairs by Tourism Malaysia to reach out to the international tourism players and the public.
Tourism arrivals to grow positively in 2015
Despite the challenges faced in 2014, Dato’ Mirza remains hopeful that tourist arrivals to Malaysia will improve beginning March 2015 onwards.
To restore confidence among tourists to visit Malaysia, Dato’ Mirza views that crisis management needs to be conducted effectively and quickly. “If we are slow to respond to a crisis, we open ourselves up to too much speculation, making the matter worse. We must dispense clear cut and effective information,” he advises.
“We also need to hype up our advertising and promotion to remain visible among our global audience and maintain their interest towards the destination. More effort is required, including market redevelopment and revival campaigns, to rebuild confidence,” he adds.
To encourage tourists to continue exploring the country, Dato’ Mirza suggests that there is no limit to the choice of transportation modes available in Malaysia. “If tourists are apprehensive about flying, they can enter Malaysia and explore the country by land, since Malaysia’s good roads are accessible from Singapore and Thailand to enter Peninsular Malaysia, as well as from Kalimantan and Brunei to access Sabah and Sarawak. More emphasis is being done to encourage tourists to travel by road and rail,” he mentions.
Due to the global economic slowdown and decrease in international tourist arrivals, the Malaysian tourism industry now shifts its attention to the domestic market. Since the number of outbound Malaysian travellers has decreased due to the unfavourable exchange rate, Malaysians are instead vacationing locally, therefore boosting domestic travel.
Tourism Malaysia places emphasis on domestic tourism by developing domestic campaigns, besides encouraging local companies and corporations to hold their management retreats and employee programmes such as family day in Malaysia rather than overseas. In light of this, Tourism Malaysia organises the Corporate Travel Bazaar, where big companies can buy Malaysian vacations and stay packages for their employees.
“People who are having difficulty in business might have some extra time while waiting for the market to improve, therefore they become potential domestic tourists who make short trips to destinations within Malaysia, creating demand for domestic travel. When people are busy making money, they have no time for much of anything else – once they take a recess, demand for vacation can grow because they will be travelling with their family and patronise local resorts and visit attractions,” he opines.
With all of these challenges, Dato’ Mirza is confident that the organisation’s personnel is capable of handling and addressing them head on. “Tourism Malaysia’s staff live and breathe marketing and promotions because it has become their daily ritual in continuously reaching out to people year in and year out, identifying and meeting new media, new agents, new buyers, new sellers to shore up the Malaysian travel and tourism industry,” he beams.
Changes seen in the past 10 years
For the past decade, Dato’ Mirza has witnessed many changes in terms of trends and shifts. Ten years ago, the country depended mainly on the long haul markets like Europe and the Americas; nowadays, six of Malaysia’s top ten markets (Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam) come from ASEAN, indicating that the region’s travel and tourism industry, which is an integral part of the booming Asia Pacific market, is experiencing overall growth.
“Malaysia now receives more regional tourists compared to a decade ago and tourists from the ASEAN region are now more affluent than before,” he notes. China and India are also fast becoming important source markets in this day and age compared to before, therefore Tourism Malaysia’s strategies throughout the years have also changed accordingly to meet the demands of these markets.
Contributing to this growth are also the low cost carriers that open up direct routes, especially from different points in Indonesia, besides the return of full service airlines to Kuala Lumpur such as Lufthansa and British Airways, which bring in the much needed tourists from Europe, thus boosting international tourist arrivals.
“On the same note, we also see that the European market is reviving. From 2000 to 2012, the interest shown from the market was not strong since European tourists then preferred to travel to the Far East, Indochina, Latin American and the Eastern Bloc countries. However, of late, the Europeans are returning,” claims Dato’ Mirza. He further expounds that such phenomenon is due to nostalgia because in the past, before the fall of the Iron Curtain, many from Europe mainly passed by Malaysia and Singapore en route to Australia and New Zealand. Visiting the country now gives them the chance to rekindle that memory and capture the romance of travel from the bygone era. “You go to where you miss,” he quips.
He also cites other changes such as the emergence of new segments like student travel, Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) programme, and Corporate Travel Bazaar to introduce the Malaysian suppliers of travel and tourism products and services to corporate buyers. Certain hotels have also upgraded, refurbished and rebranded themselves. In the meantime, the evolution of mobile phones to smartphones also affects the behaviour of how people make decisions and record their experiences when travelling.
For Tourism Malaysia, the major change was in terms of shifting from Kuala Lumpur to Putrajaya, which Dato’ Mirza considers as a quieter environment to work in, a boon for thinkers and philosophers.
Bright future for the industry
When asked about the looming ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) that is to take effect at the end of 2015, Dato’ Mirza hopes that ASEAN would further liberalise the visa policy to allow ASEAN citizens to move freely throughout the ASEAN region to boost arrivals.
Besides removing travel barriers, another aspect of the AEC is to allow ASEAN citizens to travel out of their country and seek employment in another country within ASEAN, thus freeing the movement of trade and skills. “Such phenomenon is already rampant in the Malaysian tourism industry because we can now find ASEAN citizens working in Malaysian hotels and resorts – the AEC will make it more structured. The ASEAN of old was fragmented due to the differences in political ideologies, but today it is all open. Airlines are also flying into all of ASEAN’s capitals and major cities, while improved road systems and rail are making connectivity and accessibility faster,” says Dato’ Mirza.
Dato’ Mirza foresees that the tourism industry will continue to grow. “As people have more money, more technology, more options and more information, they definitely will prefer to travel more. People are also being very selective of the places that they are heading to because they first need to know the place in every detail so as not to take any chances. Dependence on travel institutions may be reduced because people do not need to refer to travel consultants any longer, while online booking will increase. The cost of travel will come down through the low cost carriers, online booking offers and technology. More travel packages will also be developed that involves two or more countries within ASEAN, for instance Malaysia and Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, and Malaysia and Indonesia,” he predicts.
For those who want to be in the tourism industry, Dato’ Mirza recommends that first and foremost they need to be pleasant and like to mix with people. “Those who prefer to be alone and isolated will find it difficult to thrive in the tourism industry because it requires one to socialise. The more languages you know, the better. The tourism student also needs to be engaged by the industry to ensure that they are given the best position that they are most suited for,” he advises.
On the final note, in the next five years, Dato’ Mirza ultimately hopes that Malaysia reaches its target of 36 million tourist arrivals and RM68 billion tourist receipts.
About The Author
Leave a Reply