The Strategies for Mitigating the Adverse Impact of Covid-19 in Malaysian Tourism Industry

Abstract

Tourism is a major contributor to the Malaysian economy in terms of GDP, export earnings and employment. The outbreak of COVID-19 led to travel restrictions of the governments to halt the spread of the virus. COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted the Malaysian tourism industry in particular the hotels, transportations, travel agencies and food beverages outlets. As of June, 2020, the reported projected losses were RM45bil, with total loss of about RM31bil from the international travel sector and about RM13bil in the domestic segment.MethodologyA mixed method methodology was used for this research. The data collection tools were literature review, personal interviews, and online questionnaire surveys with 135 participants. A five-point Likert scale was adopted to indicate the respondent's degree of agreement or disagreement. ResultsCOVID-19 brought the entire tourism industry to grinding halt when the Malaysian government-imposed travel bans and border closure to contain the spread of virus. These measures led to job and revenue losses. However, Malaysian Government faces several barriers to mitigate the adverse impact of COVID-19 for Malaysian tourism industry, including lack of the financial support, technological knowledge, expert support and the absence of a competitive and contingency mindset. Conclusion and RecommendationsThe findings revealed that domestic tourism and ecotourism are important to mitigate the adverse impact of COVID-19 to Malaysian tourism industry. Successful implementation of domestic tourism and ecotourism required proper Destination Management, marketing and promoting the Malaysian Tourism Brand in appropriate and effective way, enhancing Service Quality, offering the new tourism products and services, and creating Destination loyalty.