JOHOR BARU: The Tourism, Arts, and Culture Ministry reports that ASEAN member nations have decided to collaborate with Australia to foster closer tourist links and solve the challenges associated with visiting the country.
According to its secretary-general, Datuk Roslan Abdul Rahman, ASEAN leaders discussed making Australia a conversation partner in addition to its current partners—Japan, China, South Korea, Russia, and India.
We have planned and outlined the reasons why this tourist partnership between ASEAN and Australia is appropriate, thus it is currently in the works.
At yesterday’s ASEAN Tourism Forum 2025, he informed the reporters, “Malaysia has pushed for this and all the other ASEAN ministers have agreed to it.”
According to Roslan, the grouping would benefit geographically from establishing a dialogue connection with Australia.
He noted that the decision was partly influenced by the strength of the Australian dollar.
“We want to strengthen our connection and see what other tourism items we can give Asian countries, even though Australian people are already travelling there.
“Hopefully, discussions with Australia will also address current issues we face, such as the challenges Malaysians face when trying to enter the country,” he stated.
Roslan urged Malaysians to avoid being “problematic tourists” and to avoid staying too long since this could cause problems on future trips.
When travelling, Malaysians should adhere to the length of stay permitted by their respective nations, he said.
“Don’t just follow your wishes and become an illegal immigrant there.
“Your friends and family will then be the ones having trouble getting into the country in the future,” he stated.
According to Roslan, in order to prevent overtourism, ASEAN ministers also talked about boosting secondary and tertiary tourist areas.
Instead of concentrating on just one or two locations, the ministers talked about opening up less well-known ones.
He continued, “They also talked about creating tourism opportunities to attract Russian tourists to this area.”
