September MATTA Fair 2014 is here for holidaymakers

The September MATTA Fair 2014 is here! The biggest travel fair in Malaysia, MATTA Fair is being held in Kuala Lumpur PWTC, twice a year in March and September. The second event of the year already started on Friday 5th September and will end on this Sunday, 7th September 2014. Read the official MATTA Fair website here for more information.

I saw a different trend in this MATTA Fair. Instead of dominating by major travel agencies of Malaysia, the presence of foreign tourism organizations from various countries has gained a lot more spaces in the fair. Also becoming more popular is flights ticketing  booths. These are some welcome moves in trends as more holidaymakers are planning their own itineraries rather than hopping on the bandwagon of conventional packaged travel deals.

As usual, Hall 1 and 1M for international travels are receiving the most guests. The most popular international destinations I noticed for this round of event includes Japan, Korea and Europe countries. Especially Japan, the overwhelming response is partly due to the exemption of visa requirement for entering Japan resumed in July last year.

Following the previous success of the fair in attracting potential holidaymakers and generating huge revenues to the industry, tourism organizations from popular travel destinations are sending representatives to the site to promote their nation with various activities in recent years. We saw a larger groups of tourism representatives from Japan this time, occupying almost a quarter space of the venue.

Cosplay girls from Japan are seen in the venue.

Here are some of the highlights you could expect from this MTTA Fair 2014:

• Destination countries in the spotlight includes Japan, Korea, Europe and local Malaysia.
• China packages are now coming with optional no shopping stops albeit with higher prices.
• Special discounted air fairs are on offer during the fair. Full fledged airlines participating include Singapore Airlines, Emirates, Etihad, MAS, Cathay Pacific, Qatar Airways and others.
• All-inclusive travel packages remain popular among visitors to the fair, though Free n Easy options are catching up.
• Sizable cultural activities including souvenirs giveaways are held by various national tourism boards.

There is another welcome trend for vacation packages to China. As stricter regulation in China to monitor those illegal shopping stops in travel packages, we can see now there are a number of travel packages to China offered with NO shopping stops!

I have briefly checked the price for an all-inclusive package trip to Xian and Luoyang China, where I’m goiong to depart for in a couple of days. The 9 days 7 nights package will cost us no less than RM4,500 per person without any Shopping stops! For the similar itinerary, I’m planning to spend half of that price! Can we do it? I shall let you know after my Xian trip in a couple of weeks. Keep watching this travel blog for the update. 🙂 – Travel Feeder

These are the floor plans for Hall 1 and Hall 1M. I missed the Korea Tourism booths on Mezzanine floor. Make sure you won’t!

About the last MATTA Fair: For the first time, the two biggest events in the Malaysian tourism industry has been combined. The World Islamic Tourism Mart (WITM) and the Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (MATTA) Fair will be held during the same 3 days at PWTC. This event is being touted as the number 1 travel fair in Malaysia.

The exhibition will occupy almost 28,000sqm and take up 4 main halls: Hall 1, 2, 3 & 4. There is expected to be over 1,250 booths and over 200 exhibitors, with travel agents accounting for about 750 of those booths.

The other booths will be taken by National Tourism Organisations and national airlines. Malaysia Airlines and Firefly will take up the whole Hall 1 mezzanine alone. Ministry of Indonesia, the official sponsor of the WITM will take up 30 booths in Hall 2.

About The Author

Cecil Lee

The author is an avid traveler and photography hobbyist who loves to share with others his travel and photo-taking experience in many popular tourist destinations around Europe, Asia and Australasia. Read the exciting stories with many photos captured on his journeys.