MATTA to launch own booking website

MATTA will launch its own website www.matta.travel in a month's time to promote its services online.

MATTA president Datuk Hamzah Rahmat said the website was aimed at tackling competitions from other online travel sites such as Expedia.

"The website will be used as platform to promote our tourism and tourists need only book through licensed agents," he told a press conference here Saturday.

Travel domain is sponsored by the travel partnership corporation and was introduced in 2005 to promote the tourism industry worldwide.

Since George Town was listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2008, the state tourism industry has grown and become an international tourist destination.

Meanwhile, State Tourism Development and Culture committee chairman Danny Law Heng Kiang said 55 percent of Penang tourists were domestic while the rest were international.

"Tourists from Indonesia, Singapore, China, Japan, United States and the Middle East have been coming to Penang for its food, culture and heritage attractions, as well as medical tourism," he said.

He said the state had collected RM15 million in terms of hotel levy since June 2014 till May this year.

The hotel levy is used to provide incentives to airlines which open direct flights to the state and also to promote Penang at international level.

Hamzah said giving incentives to airlines to promote new routes was not a new concept as it was done previously in many countries, adding that this showed the state government was committed to improve the local tourism industry.