Waiving visa is only the first step

In addition to this internationally cknowledged document, all sovereign states may also require that visitors from certain countries get a visa first before they proceed with their travel plans.
And this is when it gets a bit complicated as visa restrictions vary from country to country. There are also different classes of visa depending on whether one is travelling for business or leisure.
For those who are travelling to clinch a big business deal, this may just be a little inconvenience which their staff can handle.
But it is often the ordinary tourist who feels the brunt of visa requirements. For while they are inundated with advertisements and special promotions to tell them to visit a particular country, getting a visa can be quite a hassle at times.
Which is why every time there is a story about any country waiving its visa requirements, it gets a lot of attention.

Chinese tourists
The latest news is that Malaysia is considering scrapping visa requirements for Chinese tourists.
The people of China, with their growing affluence, are travelling a lot. Chinese nationals today make up the highest number of outbound tourists globally, and their spending power while abroad is also sizeable.
And we certainly want as many of them as possible to head Malaysia’s way.
Some economists, responding to the proposal, have said this will not only benefit Malaysia’s tourism sector but the broader economy as well.
At a time when commodity prices are low, we need more revenue from the service industry, and a booming tourism sector is definitely a plus point.
In the case of China, we must not forget that the MH370 tragedy last year had an immediate impact on the number of Chinese visitors to Malaysia.
And it did not help that some mainlanders, led by celebrities, were calling for a tourism boycott following the disappearance of Flight MH370 on March 8.
According to Tourism Malaysia, 1.79 million Chinese visited the country in 2013, a rise of nearly 15 per cent from the previous year. The figures for 2014 have yet to be released.
China, being the third largest source of visitors for Malaysia, in which tourism is the sixth contributor of our GDP, is definitely an important market that must be carefully nurtured. Any measure taken to facilitate their travel into our country, like the scrapping of the visa requirement, will help.
At the same time, we also need to remind ourselves that waiving the visa is but the first step. We also need to ensure that the country is safe and friendly to our legitimate visitors, not only those from China but from every other country as well.
If we play the perfect host, they will want to come back again. And they can also do so at the spur of the moment since a valid passport is all they need to take a flight to our country. That’s the beauty of visa-free travel.