Chinese Travel to Malaysia Drops 30% After Flight 370

It’s taken only two months for Chinese citizens’ vows to stop traveling to Malaysia to have a measured effect.

Earlier this week, Malaysia’s minister of tourism and culture said at a tourism fair in Dubai that Chinese arrivals to Malaysia have dropped 30% since Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 went missing on March 8.

The ministry said it had ceased a tourism roadshow in China out of respect for the families of Flight 370′s passengers, 154 of whom were Chinese. A spokeswoman for the ministry’s Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board said, however, that there was “strong potential” for promotions in China to resume in the fourth quarter of this year.

In late March, China Real Time asked readers whether the plane’s disappearance had influenced their travel plans. About 54% of 1,680 voters said they were less likely to visit the Southeast Asian country now, compared with 29% who said their travel decisions flight wouldn’t be affected.

Beijingers interviewed by China Real Time in early April had mixed feelings on Malaysia’s handling of the incident. Cai Wei Ke, a real-estate agent, said his opinions of Malaysia hadn’t changed because it wasn’t fair “to judge the entire country because of the MH370 issue.” Meanwhile, a clothing store owner who went by the English name Ann said, “I thought it was a good place to travel. Now I think it’s a closed, timid country with no international view.”

China currently accounts for 12% Malaysia’s international tourists, according to a research report by Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Some travel agencies that normally market a Singapore-Malaysia-Thailand trip to Chinese citizens changed that itinerary to Singapore-Vietnam-Thailand over this year’s recent May Day holiday. The China National Tourism Administration said fewer May Day travelers visited Malaysia compared with previous years, according to state media.

Wolfgang Arlt, director of the China Outbound Tourism Research Institute, which tracks where Chinese are traveling, said the drop was expected.

“Chinese tourists behave more like a swarm of fish than Western travelers when it comes to where you should or shouldn’t travel,” Mr. Arlt

But Chinese interest in Malaysia will bounce back once updates over the disappearance of Flight 370 fade from the news, he predicts. In the meantime, he expects Chinese tourists will choose to travel to other Southeast Asian countries that offer similar attractions – beaches, sightseeing and gambling.