Three incentives to boost tourism industry - Ahmad Zahid

The government hopes to provide three forms of incentives to tour and travel companies in efforts to attract more foreign tourists to the country, said Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.

He said he would be tabling the proposal for the three types of incentives to the Cabinet and hoped Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak would give the approval.

Ahmad Zahid said the proposed first incentive was to offer special allowance to company representatives who bring in foreign tourists following joint promotion programmes with Tourism Malaysia, abroad.

The second incentive was corporate tax reduction for tour operators and agencies which succeeded in attracting foreign tourists, he said.

"The third incentive is special provisions for tour operators and agencies to cover printing and advertising material costs for promotion," he said when closing the Malaysia Inbound Tourism Association (MITA) Tourism Fair 2016 here Sunday. Earlier, Ahmad Zahid said tourism was an important sector in contributing to the national income and a fast way to help revive the economy.

Recognizing this fact he said the government was always looking for ways to facilitate the arrival of tourists to the country, including granting visa exemption for Chinese tourists, as announced by the Prime Minister in the 2016 Budget Calibration recently.

Ahmad Zahid, who is also Home Minister said he would be off to China today to inform the leaders there of Malaysia's latest stand on visa exemption for Chinese tourists visiting Malaysia.

"We will also help simplify certain procedures used by the authorities there (China)," he said.

He said with this move the government has targeted the arrival of eight million Chinese tourists with an average spending of RM3,345 per person which can generate a yearly revenue of RM22.11 billion.