Tourism Malaysia and AirAsia MOVE have teamed up on a new campaign called Oh Sem Malaysia!, and the timing matters if you're planning a trip to the country. The initiative is part of the wider Visit Malaysia 2026–2027 push, and its main pitch is simple: look past the big-name hotspots and put secondary cities and lesser-known corners of the country on the itinerary.
The two organisations already had a strategic partnership in place; this deepens it. Expect co-branded marketing, destination-specific promotions and curated travel packages designed to get Malaysians travelling domestically — and to nudge regional visitors toward places they might otherwise skip. The focus spans cultural heritage, food, hospitality and eco-tourism, so the deals should touch a range of trip styles rather than just city breaks.
For travellers, the practical part is where the savings land. AirAsia MOVE users will get discounts across the platform's whole ecosystem during the campaign: flights, hotels, SNAP! flight-plus-hotel bundles, airport transfers and attractions bookings. If you were going to book any of those separately anyway, it's worth checking the campaign pricing before you do.
The numbers behind the push are substantial. Malaysia recorded 151.6 million domestic visitor arrivals in the first half of 2026, up 5.6 per cent on the 143.5 million in the same period a year earlier. Tourism, meanwhile, generated RM323 billion in gross value added in 2025 — about 15.9 per cent of the country's GDP. In other words, this isn't a small marketing exercise; domestic travel is a serious pillar of the Malaysian economy, and both parties want to keep the momentum going.
Tourism Malaysia's chairman, Datuk Manoharan Periasamy, framed the campaign as a way to spread the economic benefit to local businesses and communities outside the usual tourist circuit. AirAsia MOVE's commercial head, Chan Kok Ding, made the case from the tech side: as a homegrown OTA with strong reach across Southeast Asia, the platform can turn inspiration into actual bookings through its app and data.
Why should an international traveller care? Because campaigns like this tend to improve the traveller experience on the ground — better promotion of secondary destinations usually means more flights, refreshed hotels and newly polished attractions in towns that have long sat in the shadow of Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Langkawi. If Malaysia's smaller cities are on your 2026 or 2027 shortlist, the next two years are a good window to go: the country will be actively investing in showing them off, and flight-and-hotel bundles through the AirAsia MOVE app are likely to undercut booking everything à la carte.
Credit: Breaking Travel News
