The introduction of new daily Kuala Lumpur-Sydney services by AirAsia X has further highlighted the need for hotel investment, an industry body has warned.
The Tourism and Transport Forum stressed that additional accommodation was required for Sydney to be able to cater for a significantly increased influx of Asian tourists from April, when the new service will take to the skies.
“Today’s announcement also underlines the need for investment in additional hotel capacity for Sydney, where occupancy rates are over 85%,” he said. “If we are attracting more visitors to Sydney, it follows that they’ll need somewhere to stay.”
But Lee also underlined the positive impact of the inbound surge, providing the industry with access to tourists across the airline’s network of 80 destinations in 20 countries.
“These daily flights will eventually bring an additional 55,000 visitors to New South Wales every year, contributing almost $140 million to the state’s economy and creating business and employments opportunities statewide,” he said.
Tourism Australia also welcomed the new route, branding it a “continuum” of its approach to attract more international air services from key source destinations in Asia.
Malaysia represented Australia’s seventh most important market, according to managing director Andrew McEvoy, and was also one of the fastest growing markets with the highest rate of repeat visitation.
“As part of a continued ‘team Australia’ approach to grow our international air capacity, in particular our links to Asia, Tourism Australia welcomes this new daily flight offering,” he said.
The addition of the new route will take the number of weekly services between Malaysia and Australia to 87.
