Selangor teams up with South-east Asian operators for homestays

Selangor is aiming to be the first Malaysian state to jointly market its 15 homestay offerings with other homestay operators across Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia and Vietnam by 2014.

Arshad Mustafa, director, Ministry of Tourism Malaysia, Selangor Office, explained that joint marketing efforts with overseas homestay operators would benefit homestay visitors to Selangor, opening up the possibility of visiting multiple homestays across different countries within a single itinerary.

“The first step is to create a portal for all 15 homestays in Selangor. We hope to have (the portal) ready in December,” he said. “We will (then) invite homestay operators overseas to participate in next year’s Selangor Homestay Carnival, scheduled for November (2013). There will be seminars where operators are able to exchange ideas, as well as a B2C event where the Malaysian public can purchase homestay packages.”

From January to August 2012, the 15 homestay operators in Selangor hosted 25,246 guests, of whom 3,416 were from overseas. Almost half of these foreign visitors were from Japan, South Korea and Singapore. Revenues received from homestay visitors during this period totalled RM1.14 million (US$374,000).

-TTG Asia.

http://www.go2homestay.com/