IF NOT for the Covid-19 pandemic, we would see Middle Eastern tourists with handfuls of shopping bags strolling along the streets in Bukit Bintang this time of the year.
Over the last few years, they arrived in droves, with Malaysia's shopping districts turned into Middle Eastern townships.
Several tour operators which specialise in driving Middle Eastern tourists in luxury multi-purpose vehicles once told me that they enjoy ferrying the wealthy Arabs because of the generous tips that they received at the end of the holiday trip.
Saudi Arabia was Malaysia's largest source of tourists in the West Asian region last year, with arrivals growing by 11 per cent to 115,000 between January and November; while tourists from the United Arab Emirates increased 22 per cent to about 10,000.
According to the tour operators who could speak and write Arabic, although these Middle Eastern tourists could be picky and patronising, they would not hesitate spending their money, hence generating revenue for the economy.
One of the tour operators said most Middle Eastern tourists value four S's when they visit Malaysia. The first S is that Arabs, both men and women, love going on shopping sprees. The other S's are seafood, spa and sightseeing.
"Once they told me they wanted to taste seafood at Jalan Alor in Bukit Bintang, but when I said it might not be halal, they told me seafood in Malaysia has always been halal. They told me that's what they read on the internet – about how halal the Malaysian food is because this is a Muslim country," the tour operator said.
What kind of information are tourists getting from Tourism Malaysia or from independent tourism blogs on a diverse country like Malaysia?
I wonder if Tourism Malaysia has gone through the minute details of tourists' wants and needs – whether they are free independent travelers or group inclusive tours. If they had read Tourism Malaysia's website, I'm sure these tourists would obtain precise information tailored to their needs and wants based on their behaviors and trends.
While I believe Tourism Malaysia is intensifying the use of social media platforms as part of its integrated marketing campaign, I think it would be even better if the authority starts thinking about using Big Data analytics in its tourism promotions.
Although this requires quite a big sum of investment, Big Data will come in handy for Tourism Malaysia to computationally understand, learn and analyse large data sets that can reveal patterns, trends, and associations especially relating to the tourists' needs and wants.
It will help the authority understand and predict the sorts of niches and generic services needed by tourists when they travel to the country's places of interests. Tourism Malaysia will understand tourists' behaviour better and come up with attractive tourist packages.
There's a pressing need for stakeholders and partners in the tourism industry to work towards the recovery of the industry. One sure way is to latch on to Big Data that will provide data-based knowledge and experience for them to kick start the industry. I believe tour operators with the right technology are likely to overcome the problems besieging them in the current new normal even quicker.
In addition to this, airlines, hotels, transport companies and other operators can join forces in offering joint travel packages based on Big Data analytics. This will reduce the costs for businesses and visitors, apart from making the country's tourism industry more competitive.
Only through Big Data can Tourism Malaysia reduce its expenditures in building up marketing strategies, unlike the conventional marketing it has been doing over the years.
The writer, a former NST journalist, is now a film scriptwriter whose penchant is finding new food haunts in the country
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times