Wednesday, September 18, 2019
As more investors are relocating their businesses to the ASEAN region, including Malaysia, Marriott International sees a huge untapped potential in Malaysia’s tourism industry.
Marriott International is a United States-based multinational diversified hospitality company that manages and franchises a broad portfolio of hotels and related lodging facilities.
“From our perspective, Malaysia has incredible opportunities (to grow), it is very well positioned and has been marked as “truly Asia” because it has so much to offer. On the ASEAN front, they have China and India on either side. Marriott International president and managing director for Asia Pacific Craig S. Smith told Bernama.
“Also, the upcoming infrastructure developments such as the rail link, I think the Malaysian government is making some strategic decision on infrastructure which going to help the country in the long run. We see growth family travel such as short break and staycation,” he added
Smith said the ASEAN region has been benefiting much from the current US-China trade war, of which an increasing number of investors were seen moving out from China and relocated their factories to the region.
Even if the trade war ended, he said ASEAN would still be benefited and remained as a strategic location, as currently more factories were moving out of China to the ASEAN region and these factories could not moving back to China or other places within the short period.
“Companies are looking for places that they think are secured for home travel. One of the things we’ve been hearing from economist is even if the trade war improved, there will be companies that are insecure and want to be in a stable environment and location, and Malaysia fits the bill.”
He said the Marriott International also had sealed deals for 100 hotels to be in operations in the Asia Pacific next year, with a possibility of more depending on the current aggressive plan by the group to expand its presence in the region.
Marriott International recently has further expanded its partnership with YTL Hotels, the hospitality arm of YTL Corporation, to bring the AC Hotels by Marriott brand to Malaysia, which will be the first country to have the AC Hotels in the Asia Pacific region.
YTL Corp’s executive director Datuk Mark Yeoh Seok Kah said under the agreement, three existing Vistana Hotels, namely in Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Kuantan, will fly the AC Hotels by Marriott brand flag following a strategic conversion.
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