KOTA KINABALU, Jan 20 — Sabah Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Masidi Manjun today welcomed the move for free visa for Chinese tourists, calling it a good beginning to gain back some traction with the biggest tourist target market in the world.

He said the announcement by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak today during the budget revision for free visa for tourists is a step in the right direction to make it easier for visitors to choose Malaysia as their holiday destination.

“In the case of Sabah, it is the correct decision to revitalise the industry in view of the steep decline in Chinese visitors’ arrival last year,” he said, adding that he assumed that the budget revision announcement referred to visa-on-arrival for Chinese tourists.

Sabah’s global tourist market has taken a dive since the Flight MH370 incident in March last year when a Beijing-bound plane from Kuala Lumpur went missing with 239 passengers, a majority of whom were Chinese nationals.

Several kidnapping incidents off the east coast of Sabah further hammered the declining numbers and by August, numerous cancelled chartered flights saw tourist arrivals nosedive by 30 per cent.

Masidi said, however, that although industry players will be elated with the announcement of the visa waiver, which they have been pushing for, optimism over the expected rise in Chinese arrivals must be tempered with realistic expectation.

“China has just announced that its GDP growth for 2014 is just 7.4 per cent, the lowest in 24 years. This contraction means China too is making adjustment to its neck-breaking pace of economic growth.

“This slower economic growth could affect the Chinese disposable income and influence overseas travel trend among the Chinese.

“It could mean less Chinese may travel overseas for their holidays. In short, let our confidence of more Chinese visitors in Sabah in 2015 be tempered with realism,” he said in a text message to Malay Mail Online.

Meanwhile, China’s Consul-General in Kuching Liu Quan also said that the announcement bodes well for more China tourists in the future.

“I heard about it (the visa waiver) from friends but have not received anything official yet. This is definitely very good news and we believe it will further boost the good rapport between China and Malaysia,” he said.

“Of course, with the waiving of visa fees, it would be more attractive to Chinese tourists. It will definitely be an added factor, especially since Sabah is already a famous destination to the Chinese,” he said.

Last year, Li said a total of 300,000 Chinese tourists visited Sabah.

With 80 million Chinese going overseas as tourists annually, the market is one of the most lucrative in the world and countries all over the world are providing more incentives to attract them.

A visa application for a China national reportedly costs 80 yuan (about RM46).