GTA helps Malaysia win even more international visitors

140 sales and marketing representatives visit Kuala Lumpur this week (19-21 February 2014) as global travel distributor GTA holds its 2014 conference for teams from the Asia-Pacific (APAC), Middle East and Africa (MEA) regions in Malaysia. The event comes as GTA’s data for 2013 shows that the number of room nights booked by the world’s fully independent travellers (FIT) visiting Malaysia grew by 44% last year.

This year the conference takes place at the Aloft Hotel Sentral in Kuala Lumpur. Choosing a different host every year gives attendees a flavour of the destination and inspires them to share the appeals of its accommodation and experiences with colleagues around the world.

Nigel Horne, GTA’s Senior Vice President for Global Sales & Marketing, says: “GTA has been powering global travel for nearly four decades. The strong relationships our sales teams have forged with the travel trade have helped Malaysia and its hotels enjoy such a significant increase in bookings. Hosting the conference in Kuala Lumpur will give us a taste of the Malaysian experience and will help us educate travel agents and tour operators to secure the destination’s future growth.”

According to Tourism Malaysia, international travel into the country has steadily increased over the last five years particularly. Latest figures for the first nine months of 2013 indicate a 3.3% increase in international arrivals compared to the same nine months of 2012.

GTA’s data also shows that Malaysia was most popular for Australians last year, followed by travellers from Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Hong Kong and Japan. Beyond Asia and the Middle East, the United Kingdom was the country’s most important source of visitors. China, Hong Kong and South Korea all doubled the number of room nights booked in Malaysia, while in Europe the most significant year on year growth came from Denmark, Finland and Germany.

Adds Nigel: “GTA’s technology, destination expertise and service standards have been helping businesses accommodate fully independent travellers on practically every part of the planet. Given our success, Malaysia is increasingly looking to us as a global distribution partner that can help it affordably reach visitors from abroad.”

GTA generates tens of thousands of bookings for hotels, attractions and other tourism businesses every day and sells 12 million room nights in more than 25 languages online and throughout the world. Today, travel agents across the planet rely on the company to help them provide their customers – the travelling public – with the accommodation, services, excursions and experiences they most want to enjoy.