KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (MATTA) has launched matta.travel, a one-stop online por-tal for local and international tour packages. MATTA president Datuk Hamzah Rahmat said that the portal, which provides a range of tour packages from tour and travel agents, aimed to address the lack of portals offering such services.
"Most of the online (travel) platforms right now offer hotels and flights but if you want to find tour packages, there are not many offer-ing them. "Consolidation is the way forward," said Hamzah, who was speaking after the launch of the portal at the Malaysia Tourism Centre here yesterday. He said the idea for the portal came after MATTA saw the need for players in the local travel industry to embrace technology. "Our partners, airlines and hoteliers, empowered by the digital age, have begun to sell directly to the consumers online. "We are going to get all of our members to embrace this as it will be a big miss for them if they do not”.
If they do not," he said, adding that by the end of the year, the association aimed to have more than 700 packages for local and interna-tional travel on the portal. He said MATTA also planned to invest as much as RM1mil to promote the portal. Tourism Malaysia director-general Datuk Seri Mirza Mohammad Taiyab said that the agency would promote the portal in its activi-ties as it would help promote Malaysia online. Tourism and Culture Ministry Under-Secretary for the Tourism Licensing Division ahati Awang said the portal provided the public with an avenue to buy packages from licensed operators.
"At the moment, illegal online travel agents are the ones who create issues with consum-ers. A lot of fraud was committed by them. "This portal is another option for the public and it shows that there are value-added and convenient packages provided by licensed agents," said Nor Yahati. The portal, which was created through partnerships with Smart Online Travel Assist-ant (SOTA) and iPay88, can be accessed at www.matta. travel.