“Tourism Selangor is also working on strengthening its Splendid Selangor, Take Me Anywhere! campaign which focuses on the international travel market,” said Hee.
DESPITE the hurdles the past two years have presented to the tourism industry, Selangor has managed to bag the Best Destination of the Year Award at the Malaysia Tourism Council Gold Awards last year.
With this being Selangor’s second time winning the award, the state government, through Tourism Selangor, also held the Tourism Selangor Global Convention (TSGC) 2021 earlier on Dec 10 and 11 last year.
Officiated by Selangor Mentri Besar Amirudin Shari, TSGC 2021 was a hybrid conference that garnered 2,000 guests physically and virtually. The conference aimed to reset tourism on a global stage and highlighted different topics from speakers across different sectors with the vision to elevate the tourism industry, especially in Selangor.
“With the organisation of the first-ever tourism Global Convention in Malaysia, Selangor was a step-ahead,” said Selangor Tourism and Environment executive council member Hee Loy Sian.
“We are excited to explore the possibilities towards building more profitable and secure tourism strategies specially catered to this challenging pandemic era.
“Selangor is also optimistic that through effective use of the insights gained from TSGC 2021, the state will once again receive visitors of up to 30 million people as we did in 2019.”
When it came to the recovery efforts for Selangor’s tourism sector, Hee said that the state government’s financial aid is to provide a boost to the affected industry players to cushion the impacts of the pandemic and sustain their business operations.
“The state government has channelled financial aid totalling RM5.51mil to its tourism industry through the Selangor’s Economic Recovery Plan 2020 with RM2.5mil. Last year we had the Kita Selangor 2.0 Package with an allocation of RM2.55mil.
“Also through the Kita Selangor 2.0 Package 2021, RM1mil was allocated towards financial aid grants for tourism promotional programmes and activities, a further RM1mil for Selangor’s 2.0 Tourism Voucher Subsidy, RM255,000 one-off incentives to Selangor’s 17 tourism associations, and RM300,000 for the Tourism Digitalisation Training Programme,” Hee added.
This year Selangor is gearing up for the Pusing Selangor Dulu domestic tourism campaign. So far, the campaign has reached over 22 million people on their digital platforms.
“It shows that the public is aware of Tourism Selangor’s initiatives and that the campaign has attracted the interest of the public,” Hee said.
Tourism Selangor chief executive officer Azrul Shah Mohamad with the Destination of the Year Award and Tourism Selangor officers at the Malaysia Tourism Council Gold Awards 2021 last December.
Moving forward, Tourism Selangor aims to further strengthen its digital platforms, including the website (www.selangor.travel) and 14 social media sites in various languages.
“Tourism Selangor will also engage in key opinion leader (KOL) marketing, bolstering its mass media, digital and out-of-home (OOH) advertising and creating content on TikTok and YouTube accounts,” Hee added.
Tourism Selangor will also embark on its Jelajah Pusing Selangor Dulu 2022 to other states including Sabah and Sarawak, to draw domestic visitors to Selangor.
Tourism Selangor welcomes collaborations from various industry players such as airline companies, travel agencies and the media in organising familiarisation trips.
All this alongside frequent round-table discussions will help with the recovery of the tourism industry in the state whilst developing state gems and developing the untouched beauty of Selangor.
