KUALA LUMPUR: Visitors to the ongoing Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (Matta) Fair are more willing to fork out for their tour packages, now that the fear of influenza A(H1N1) has subsided.

Organising committee chairman Datuk Mohd Khalid Harun said public response to the fair had been very positive.

“There were 27,100 people who came on the first day of the fair. On the second day, 38,300 people turned up to see what was on offer.

“From what I can see, visitors seem to favour tourist destinations like China, Australia, Indonesia, Korea, Taiwan and Japan,” he said.

Khalid also advised consumers not to get caught up by the heat of the moment due to attractive low prices on offer and read through the details of the tour packages.

“They need to be careful of hidden costs when choosing their holiday packages and ensure that the travel agencies honour their contracts,” he said, urging consumers to report to Matta any travel agency that short-changed them.

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PETALING JAYA, March 4 (Bernama) — MATTA Fair 2010 will be a “must-go” event next week as community airline Firefly Sdn Bhd is offering attractive holiday packages to local and international destinations.

Firefly’s head of marketing and communications department, Angelina Fernandez, said the airline was now able to offer more variety, including to destinations worldwide through connectivity with Malaysia Airlines (MAS).

“In the previous three years, we offered only Firefly destinations but this year we are offering over 100 MAS destinations worldwide, including London, Paris and Tokyo,” she said at a press conference here Thursday.

With the slogan “Kick Off Your Holiday with Firefly Holidays”, Angelina said the theme would be on football as the World Cup fever was already in the air.

The packages are categorised under “Striker” for the best value package deals, “Midfielder” for packages with complementary value-adds such as spa sessions, dinners and transfers, and “Defender” for free and easy packages.

Another offer is Firefly tickets at RM1 to all destinations via the newly introduced Firefly Mobile application.

Head of Firefly’s distribution Lawrence Chai said this promotion would only be available onsite and visitors must make their purchases using their mobile phones.

Angelina said following the success in last year’s MATTA Fair, the airline had decided to reward customers with attractive prizes worth more than RM500,000.

“There will be a ‘penalty kick’ for any customer spending more than RM6,000 on Firefly and MAS packages with the chance to win a Maxis-Blackberry mobile phone or flight tickets,” she said.

The flying simulator, which was the main attraction on last year’s event, will again be present to give visitors a chance to test their piloting skills.

“The top three best piloting and landing participants will stand to win two complimentary Firefly tickets each as well as MAS tickets to Los Angeles, Istanbul and Hong Kong as grand prizes,” Angelina said.

MATTA Fair will be held at the Putra World Trade Centre in Kuala Lumpur from March 12 to 14.

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PETALING JAYA: Travellers can get flights for as low as RM9 one way during AirAsia’s “Big Sale” promotion this week.

All destinations apply from March 3 to 7, with domestic destinations like Penang, Langkawi, Terengganu, Johor Baru and Kota Baru priced from RM9 one-way.

Visitors can head to Kuching for RM29 and to Kota Kinabalu for RM49 one-way. For international flights, Austra lian destinations such as Gold Coast, Melbourne and Perth start at RM149 one-way, while a ticket to London is going for RM699.

To enjoy the discounts, passengers must book their trip between March 3 and 7 for travel between Sept 25 this year and Feb 13 next year.

Meanwhile, business and industry circles in northern Sarawak are disappointed that AirAsia had terminated direct flights from Miri to Singapore from Monday, saying this disrupted important business and tourism linkages.

Sarawak Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Datuk Sim Hock Guan said yesterday the move had resulted in loss of business for the oil and gas and tourism sectors, and interrupted daily social links.

He said the business community was surprised at the termination since the route averaged a 70% passenger load daily since it began last September.

“I am appealing to AirAsia and the federal authorities to reinstate the flight.

“Over the past three days, we received a lot of complaints from angry people from the business, tourism and oil and gas sectors and also from the public who are affected by the cancellation,” he said.

Sim added that the chamber had written to the state Tourism and Heritage Ministry and was informed that the issue had been forwarded to the state Cabinet.

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