Malaysia mulls easing travel restrictions for Sri Lankans
View(s):Malaysian tourism authorities, overwhelmed by protests from Indians and Sri Lankans over a restrictive visa entry process, say they are seriously considering relaxing the rules. ”I am going back (to the hotel) and will send our recommendation on the need to relax the visa rules,” Dato Daljit Singh, member of the Tourism Malaysia Board of Directors, told reporters at a news briefing in Colombo on Thursday. He was swamped by questions with one reporter saying that while Malaysia wants to ‘welcome’ as many visitors as possible, its visa process is ‘highly unwelcome”.
Part of a sales delegation to Sri Lanka and India, Mr. Singh, also responding to a reporter, confessed that they encountered the same issue during the Indian visit. “We were told in India too that the visa process was restrictive and (we) need to look into this (as a matter of urgency).”
Visitors to Malaysia have to submit documents on bank details, employer’s letter and copy of business registration among others while visa fees have also sharply risen since the process was handled by an outsourced agency from 2014 onwards. Reciprocally, visitors from Malaysia to India or Sri Lanka can use the online visa facility.
Delegation officials said that due to the double tragedy faced by Malaysia Airlines in 2014, tourism promotion slowed down considerably last year though Malaysia has been regularly taking part at key overseas travel shows. The South Asian market is important to Malaysia but arrivals there from India and Sri Lanka dropped last year to 722,141 (Indians) and 51,337 (Sri Lankans) from 770,108 and 61,670, respectively in 2014. “We want to increase or retain the earlier numbers,” Mr. Singh said. Malaysia is targetting 30.5 million arrivals this year, up from 25.7 million in 2015. The delegation also included 57 representatives from DMCs, hotels and four airlines. Delegates came from Genting Malaysia Bhd, Legoland Malaysia Resort, Sunway Lagoon, Tourism Johor, Tourism Selangor, Malaysia Airlines, Malindo Air, and AirAsia, among others.
(Feizal)