The Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (MATTA) thanks our Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad for agreeing with the issues of the tourism industry.
MATTA President Datuk Tan Kok Liang says “If departure levy is implemented on 1 September, it is expected to have a negative impact on foreign tourist arrivals. Why tax foreign tourists twice? They are now being imposed with a tourism tax of RM10 per room night. For the first five months of this year, the arrivals rose by 4.8 percent when 8.8 percent is needed to reach the 28.1 million targets for 2019. At this rate, we will end up with 26.3 million and lower if departure levy is implemented. If so, we have once again failed to achieve targetted number of tourist arrivals since 2013, for the seventh consecutive year.”
“One of the many industry concerns is the increase of airport tax and the rates unreasonably standardised across all airports in the country from 1 January 2018, regardless of their size, service level or class of travel. But such practice goes against the grain of fair pricing, which should be the cornerstone of every business or industry.”
