Malaysia To Waive Visa Fees For Indian Visitors

14 Feb 2015

With an intention to allure more Indian tourists to visit Malaysia, the Malaysian government is planning to waive Visa fees for Indians.

At present, Indian visitors spends around RM350 to RM400 on Malaysia visit visa and other related expenses.

The minister for Tourism, Nazri Aziz said that the visa fee waiver was amid the ways of bringing an extra two million travelers, and reaches the target of 29.4 million global tourist arrivals in 2015.

In the previous year itself, around 1.4 million Indians travelled to Malaysia, accounting almost RM1.8 billion in country’s tourism earning between January and September in 2014, when compared with RM1.3 billion in the corresponding period 2013.

The fifth largest origin of tourists for Malaysia is India, one of the favorite Asean destinations.  He added that on an average Indian tourists spend around RM2,900, while they visit and reside in Malaysia for six and a half days.

 He also added that Indian visitors are big spender particularly when it comes for shopping.

The travelers from South Korea, Japan and China countries are already enjoying free-visa privileges.

The tourism minister also said that there was huge potential for additional growth of Indian tourism trade to Malaysia, as four leading airlines intended to augment direct weekly flights to travel Malaysia.

At present, there are 156 flights for each week linking major Indian cities and Malaysia, catering around 30,000 seats.

Minister also stated that in the previous year, total entries of overseas travelers stood at 27.4 million and promotional campaigns are also actively organized by the ministry, not only in India but also in other Indian sub-continent nations to endorse Malaysia.

This year, Malaysia is planning to bring in at least two million more travelers to fulfill the government target, with expected a revenue of RM80 billion, he added.

Moreover, he added, that Indians who would like to stay longer in Malaysia can opt for Malaysia’s Second Home Program, which allows individuals to reside in Malaysia for a maximum period of 10 years without visa requirement.

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