Japan’s taxi association members visit Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR - A total of 46 members of the Sango Taxi Association from Osaka, one of the largest taxi associations in Japan, arrived in Malaysia at 29 May for a four-day familiarisation tour. Organised by Tourism Malaysia, it marks an effort to enlist their help to promote Malaysia as a top-of-mind holiday destination for Japanese tourists.

The participants are divided into groups to visit some of the most popular tourist destinations in the country including Genting Highlands, Kuala Lumpur, Melaka, and Selangor, as well as to enjoy a batik or a golf tour.

The Minister of Tourism and Culture Malaysia Dato’ Seri Mohammad Nazri Abdul Aziz hosted a dinner on 1 June to express his appreciation to the members of Sango Taxi Association for their assistance in promoting Malaysia to their passengers and clients once they return to Japan.

The fam tour is a part of Tourism Malaysia’s continuous efforts to promote the wide variety of attractive tourism offerings in the country to Japanese tourists. In fact, since 1 October 2013, Tourism Malaysia has been collaborating with seven taxi associations in Japan from its seven major cities namely Osaka, Tokyo, Kobe, Yokohama, Fukuoka, Nagoya and Sapporo, in an advertising campaign called Taxi Wrapping. It involved a total of 840 taxis with 120 taxis in each city.

The advertising campaign is in line with the celebration of Visit Malaysia Year (VMY) 2014 to raise the awareness of this national tourism campaign among Japanese tourists, as well as to strengthen bilateral relations between Malaysia and Japan. Tourism Malaysia is the first national-level tourism organisation that initiated a taxi wrapping campaign overseas.

Japan is one of Malaysia’s top ten tourist generating markets. The first three months of 2014 already registered 149,859 Japanese tourists to Malaysia, signifying an increase of 7.9% compared to the same period in 2013. This year, Malaysia aims to attract 600,000 Japanese tourists to the country in conjunction with VMY 2014.

With better connectivity between Malaysia and Japan through direct flights by Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia X and Japan Airlines from Tokyo (28 flights per week), Osaka (14 flights per week) and Nagoya (4 flights per week), Tourism Malaysia foresees higher passenger traffic between the two countries in the future.

Sourced: TravelDailyNews