PETALING JAYA: Visual artist Mohd Fitri Fauzi does not want to just rely on online recommendations when he goes travelling and prefers to have a guide.
The outdoor enthusiast and his two friends recently joined another friend, who is also a tour guide, on a hike to the BMC Blue Lake in Bandar Mahkota Cheras.
“It was good to have a guide because we were not familiar with the route and the place.
“After enjoying the stunning view, our tour guide friend also brought us to a few other places to enjoy some nice local food.
“Then, the next day, we were given a narrative trip about the older quarters of the city centre, strolling down the streets with the old buildings while listening to the stories.
“I think such an interactive trip is not something that we can achieve by checking into places according to online recommendations,” he said.
The 35-year-old from Seremban, Negri Sembilan, is now looking forward to joining similar trips in the near future.
He is not the only one, according to Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (MATTA) secretary-general Nigel Wong, who said “experiential touring” was now the “new black” in the tourism industry, especially among millennials who emphasised more on the depth of their experience.
Based on a United Nations World Tourism Organisation report, Wong said future travel would be driven by millennials born between 1981 and 1996, who tended to go for “experiential tours”.
“It is no longer popular for them to go in large groups as what the previous generations used to, hopping on buses with 40 people and going to as many places as you can.
“Now, the trend is to experience more depth at a destination, the attraction or what the experience has to offer. They tend to spend more time in a particular area and they demand more in terms of stories and the whole experience behind it,” he said.
Tour and travel agents, he said, needed to take advantage of this emerging trend – not only because the millennials were coming out as key drivers of the tourism market but also that post-Covid-19, people realised there was much more to a tour.
“We see the trend is starting to move towards experiential touring and agents offering such services are expected to increase.
“Agents should cater to this new market. They need to be more creative in their packages and refocus their offering for the smaller groups, with quality and depth of experience.
“Storytelling will play a big role in this new trend,” Wong said, adding that these tourists also tended to pay more for their experience.
However, the new trend would not be replacing traditional tours overnight, he said, adding that Malaysians now had a greater appreciation of travelling within their own country.
MATTA, said Wong, had recently come together with the Malaysian Association of Convention and Exhibition Organisers and Suppliers, the Malaysian Association of Hotels and airlines under the Malaysia Aviation Group to launch the Travel Safe Alliance Malaysia to ensure that appropriate health and safety procedures and processes were in place.