Weibo will help boost Chinese tourist arrivals to two million this year

The Malaysia Inbound Tourism Association (MITA) is working closely with the biggest social media company in China, 'Weibo', to help promote Malaysian tourism in China.

Tourism Malaysia Director-General Datuk Seri Mirza Mohammad Taiyab said the move was in line with the government's target to attract two million Chinese travellers to visit the country.

"For 2015, we had a total of 25.7 million tourists who came to Malaysia, with 1.67 million from China. It shows a four per cent increase as compared to 2014, where 1.61 million tourists arrived from China.

"We support any effort, even we are already on Weibo to promote Malaysia. This tool will allow communication with a lot of people in China and we need that," he told reporters after officiating the MITA seminar on 'How to Promote Malaysia Effectively in China through Weibo' here today.

Weibo is the Chinese version of Twitter and Facebook, and it is one of the most popular sites in China, in use by well over 30 per cent of Internet users, with a market penetration similar to the United States' Twitter.

Meanwhile, MITA deputy president, Uzaidi Udanis said the tourism association foresaw the change in travel habits would take place for Chinese travelers with more than 200 million mainland Chinese travelling overseas by 2020.

"Weibo has more than 600 million registered users and 271 million of active users. Through the platform, more than 45 million Weibo's users are frequent travellers and Malaysia is one of the top discussed travel destinations in Weibo," he said.