Under the “Happy Guests, Caring Hosts” programme, some 7,500 people comprising MAHB staff as well as personnel from immigration, customs, police and airlines crew will provide excellent “Malaysian hospitality” besides their core job functions.

“The training is going well. To date, over 6,600 people have undergone training,” MAHB’s head of guest advocacy, Suradini Abdul Ghani, told FMT.

Among others, staff will learn about the demands of today’s travellers, and how to handle difficult situations as well as what to do when facing dissatisfied guests.

After completing their training, they will guide some 10,000 airport workers nationwide on providing five-star service.

“Our end goal is to ensure that all airport staff evolve into caring hosts, which translates to happy guests. We are leveraging what comes naturally to us which is Malaysian hospitality, and taking it to the next level,” said Suradini.

She said MAHB had identified 17 touch points throughout a passenger’s stay at the airport, adding that a main aim is to give foreign visitors the “perfect first impression of Malaysia” at the airports.

“We see this as an integral part of the Visit Malaysia Year 2020, as the service they receive here will set the tone for the rest of their stay.”

Suradini said MAHB is also investing heavily to improve the overall traveller experience in line with the Malaysian Aviation Commission’s Quality of Service (QoS) Framework.

This includes complying with QoS targets at all of its international airports.

QoS measures customer comfort in a number of areas including cleanliness of toilets, availability of WiFi and reliability of lifts, escalators and walkalators.

MAHB will be spending RM100 million over the next three years on new technologies including facial recognition to do away with manual identification checks.