Kedah out to draw three million visitors to Langkawi

ALOR SETAR: The Kedah state government is implementing various initiatives to ensure the target of three million visitors to Langkawi this year can be achieved, thus maintaining the island as a preferred tourist destination.

State Tourism, Culture and Entrepreneurship Committee chairman, Datuk Mohd Salleh Saidin said based on the current momentum, the state government is confident that the target can be achieved when statistics showed 206,443 tourists were recorded as of Jan 31.

"The state government through the Kedah State Economic Planning Division and the Langkawi Development Authority (LADA) are implementing and planning various initiatives including improving accessibility to Langkawi through the improvement of new routes and the quality of transport services.

"Also offered is the Special Charter Flight Incentive Programme and so far six special flights are scheduled from Chengdu and Chongqing, China to Langkawi with a total estimate of 1080 passengers," he said in the Kedah State Legislative Assembly sitting at Wisma Darul Aman here Tuesday (March 5).

He said this when replying a question by Bakar Arang Assemblyman Loh Wei Chai (PH-PKR) regarding the strategy and initiatives implemented by the state government to bring the number of tourists to Langkawi to the level before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mohd Salleh said, apart from that, airline Flydubai has started a direct flight to Langkawi scheduled for seven times a week since Feb 10 with the arrival of tourists from West Asian countries, Europe and Africa.

"Langkawi has also received a number of visitors from 16 luxury cruise ships docked at Langkawi Cruise Terminal (CT) and this shows that Langkawi has never lost its magic. However, the state government and its agencies will not be complacent.

"Various international tourism events are also to be held in Kedah and for this year a total of 26 events have been and will be held on this legendary island, including the Royal Langkawi International Regatta 2024, Ironman Langkawi, Langkawi International Half Marathon and others," he said.

He said the state government is always working hard to bring the number of visitors to Langkawi to the pre-pandemic level and the efforts were seen as effective as the number of visitors in 2022 was 2.581 million compared to 1.093 million in 2021.

"The number of visitors continued to increase in 2023 when LADA recorded 2.81 million visitors to Langkawi, so it is not impossible that the target we set this year will be achieved and to better its previous position in terms of the number of visitors," he said. - Bernama