The annual Matka Travel Fair is the largest travel fair in Northern Europe based on number of visitors. In 2010, over 81,500 professionals and consumers visited the fair and its 1,200 exhibitors. Participants were mainly from Finland but the fair also attracted visitors from other Nordic countries, the Baltic States (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia), as well as Russia. In 2011, approximately 100,000 visitors visited the fair.
Matka offers useful information on new destinations and services. It is the main event in Northern Europe for travel industry professionals as well as general public. Matka has been widely identified as an excellent forum for countries, travel agencies and other companies to display their travel products, meet business associates, and make new tourism industry contacts in the region.
Malaysia was represented in the fair by the Tourism Malaysia Stockholm office from 20-23 January 2011. The booth served visitors in Malay, English, Swedish and Finnish. About 500 names and emails were collected from visitors in connection to a tourism competition organised by the Tourism Malaysia Stockholm office. The collection of this information will be followed by a mailing campaign to the participants.
The Embassy of Malaysia in Helsinki will assist in this campaign by means of translation and localisation of email messages for the tourism office.
The interest towards Malaysia by the visitors was evident in the high demand for brochures and materials on travel destinations of Malaysia. Particularly Penang and Langkawi was the main point of interest as ~30% of visitors asked about these places. Similarly diving and golf were the topics of interest.