GEORGE TOWN, July 13 — The Malaysian Chinese Tourism Association (MCTA) hopes the federal government can introduce more direct flights to Penang from both domestic and international destinations in order to boost the tourism industry.

Its president Datuk Albert Tan said he has been keeping track of flight updates to Malaysia in hopes that flights frequency would increase.

He said according to the recent airline flights update, flight frequency between Penang and East Malaysia was only one flight per day.

“One flight (per day) is just not enough for us to promote more domestic tourism. A lot of East Malaysians like Penang very much and in order to promote and support tourism, arts and culture for both West and East Malaysia, we would want to increase our (domestic) flight frequency,” he told reporters here today.

Tan also said due to the current federal government’s policy, every airline can only allow one international flight a week to Malaysia, which has forced some airlines to close the direct flight route to Penang.

“For instance, the China Southern Airlines used to have a direct flight between Guangzhou and Penang, but because of the restriction, they now only have one direct flight to Malaysia, which is from Guangzhou to Kuala Lumpur,”  he said.

He hoped the Penang government could talk to the federal government in order to increase flight frequency to Penang.

Earlier, Tan attended the launch of the Best Tour Packages under the ‘JOM! Experience Penang’ tourism campaign at The Wembley Hotel, Penang here.

Under the campaign, the MCTA Penang Chapter has curated a total of 23 tour packages covering all the tourist hotspots in the state.

He said other MCTA chapters could seize the opportunity to learn from the Penang chapter on how closely they worked with the state government to promote tourism.

“This is the first of its kind that one of our MCTA chapters initiated such a campaign and since other chapters also have good relations with their respective state government, this campaign could be useful as a future reference to boost domestic tourism (in their respective state),” he said.

He added that apart from the main headquarters situated in Kuala Lumpur, MCTA consists of six chapters, namely in Penang, Perak, Seremban, Johor, Sabah and Sarawak.

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