WITM-MATTA Fair kicks off

The Star’s advertising sales and business development senior manager Sara Chacko (second from right) handing over a copy of the pullout in the newspaper to Jeffri (second from left) at the Putra World Trade Centre.

KUALA LUMPUR: The three-day WITM-MATTA Fair 2013 took off today at the Putra World Trade Centre and organisers are expecting a massive crowd to throng the event.

WITM-MATTA Sept 2013 chairman Jeffri Sulaiman said that they were expecting an estimated 120,000 visitors at the travel fair for the three days.

To avoid traffic congestion, the organisers are advising visitors to take public transport instead of driving their own vehicles there. “Please take public transport, whether bus, LRT, monorail or the KTM commuter train service,” Jeffri told a press conference prior to receiving supplementary newspaper pullouts on the WITM-MATTA Sept 2013 from the fair’s media partners yesterday.

The media partners are Star Publications (Malaysia) Bhd, Nanyang Press Holdings Bhd, The China Press Bhd, Aswaq Press, Regent Media Sdn Bhd, AmLeisure Media Sdn Bhd.

Jeffri also said that while many Malaysian travellers have gone to other parts of the world, most may not have visited interesting local tourist and holiday destinations. Malaysian Association of Tour & Travel Agents (MATTA) president Hamzah Rahmat said that Indonesia was a popular destination for the September chapter of the fair while Japan had been the favoured travel location during the March MATTA Fair.

He also said that the Visit Indonesia Year 2014 would be coinciding with Visit Malaysia Year 2014 and added that he hoped both countries could collaborate to attract tourist arrivals.

Indonesia’s Tourism & Creative Economy Ministry’s tourism marketing director-general Esthy Reko Astuty said that Indonesian tourism industry players had taken up 30 booths in Hall 2. She said that they were targeting for more Malaysians to visit Indonesia and hoped to achieve more than 1.4 million tourist arrivals from Malaysia by this year. Malaysians, she said, were the second highest in arrivals to Indonesia, after Singaporeans.

Advisor and patron of the WITM-MATTA Sept 2013 Datuk Mohd Khalid Harun said visitors could also expect more Muslim-friendly packages being offered due to the tie-up with the World Islamic Tourism Mart (WITM). He also said some 50,000 MattaKads would be introduced to members and the public today. The loyalty card rewards members with discounts and bonus points on purchases.

-thestar online.