Kuala Lumpur, 19 August 2019 – The Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (MATTA) wish to thank our Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad for making an incisive decision during his recent visit to AirAsia’s headquarters at Sepang.
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% when 8.8% 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 targeted number of tourist arrivals since 2013, for the seventh consecutive year.”