MARCH 11 — Since family tourism was a panacea in the 1997 Asian financial crisis, it would be worthwhile for it to play the same role again in the current Covid-19 outbreak.

Family tourism is driven by increasing importance placed on keeping family bonds alive, boosting family togetherness and creating family memories.

Data shows that increasing longevity leads to stronger multigenerational ties, thus "reconnection holidays” is often being used to strengthen emotional bonds between extended families.

As a result, family travel is forecast to rise faster globally than all other forms of leisure travel.

In addition, a US study also shows that outdoor activities are a top favourite for family travel — 61 per cent stated that attractions like mountains and beaches would be their top choices when deciding for a family trip and 73 per cent stated that they would be headed to new destinations where they had never been.

Tourism, retail and airline industries were most impacted by the Covid-19 fallout, with Malaysia’s tourism industry reportedly suffering approximately RM6 billion in losses to date due to the widespread flights and trips cancellation.

This has resulted in Visit Malaysia Year 2020 off to a rocky start as the number of tourists from abroad has gone down in Malaysia.

Any adverse impact on the sector could directly translate into a further slowdown in our GDP growth at least in the first quarter of this year (1Q20), said Manokaran Mottain, chief economist at Alliance Bank Malaysia Bhd.

Tourist money is an important part of sustaining a large number of businesses and employees, which adds to the foreign exchange reserves of the country and contributes to GDP growth.

According to Tourism Malaysia, an agency under the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture Malaysia, the tourism industry contributed RM41.69 billion (7 per cent) to Malaysia’s GDP during the first half of last year.

Hence, what needs to be done to soften the blow given the current circumstances?

It’s time to go inwards, focusing on domestic tourism of which family tourism is a part.

"About 86 per cent of hotel room occupancies in Malaysia are contributed by the domestic sector. We learned way back in the 1997 economic crisis that we cannot dismiss domestic tourism. The upcoming school holidays are something we should leverage on,” said Tourism Malaysia director-general Datuk Musa Yusof.

Nonetheless, the top three components of tourism industry that we should be looking on are:

● Accommodation,

● Travel services, and

● Transportation.

If we look at the profile of domestic tourists based on a survey by the Department of Statistics, 68.2 per cent prefers unpaid accommodation provided by relatives and friends as the main choice of accommodation, followed by hotels (20.4 per cent), apartments (4.4 per cent), vacation homes/homestays (3 per cent), chalets (2.3 per cent) and rest houses (1.7 per cent) along with the average length of stay recorded in 2018 was three days.

Meanwhile, in terms of transportation, the survey also reveals that land transport was widely used by the majority of Malaysians in 2018 with 98.3 per cent.

Thus, given the emphasis to attract domestic tourists in particular, it becomes necessary to provide incentives for local commercial accommodations and services such as:

● Property tax rebate to licensed hotels and serviced apartments that serve accommodation and function-room segments;

● Licence fees waiver for hotels, travel agents and tourist guides;

● Competing tour package offers that allows the creation of attractive bundle packages composing transports and accommodation such as flights and accommodation; and

● fee rebates and waiver on loan repayments for buses operated by inbound tour agents.

This is because research shows that high cost of travelling is a key barrier that hinders people from travelling. Thus, by introducing these incentives, a substantial amount of financial burden for the majority to consider domestic trips for fun is taken care of.

Coming back to family tourism, Michael Blasky, spokesman for AAA Utah, an auto club AAA in the US, said that no matter their age, families are going on not just one, but multiple vacations throughout the year to revisit favourite destinations and experience new places.

Thus, much could be done to promote family tourism, taking into account local ecotourism sites and family-friendly attractions.

For example, Malaysia has a diverse range of flora and fauna and richness in natural resources and landscapes such as the Danum Valley in Sabah that houses almost half of the world’s flora and fauna like pygmy elephants, orangutans and flesh-eating pitcher plants.

With this, travellers can go for jungle-trekking, canopy walks and wildlife spotting.

Then there is the 24-acre Boulder Valley Glamping (a style of camping with amenities) in Penang that is not only green and peaceful, but also ideal for family holidays.

Therefore, to promote domestic outdoor recreation, it would be essential to offer exciting packages of outdoor tours and activities and highly attractive accommodation rates to pull in the local crowd.

To reiterate, to help the country in restoring its tourism industry due to the Covid-19 virus fallout, it would be integral to redirect focus on reviving domestic tourism and family tourism to the locals.

In the words of Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (Matta) president Tan Kok Liang, tourism service providers such as airlines, hotels, restaurants and theme parks, should have promotional offers to entice domestic tourists in order to generate more traction for the Visit Malaysia Year 2020 campaign efforts.

"The profile of local holidaymakers is diverse, and each has a special interest. So (promotions of) variety is the key.”

* Jamari Mohtar and Alissa Azizi are with the research team at think tank EMIR Research.

** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.