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ILEIID 2025 | International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS)

ISSN: 2454-6186 | DOI: 10.47772/IJRISS

Special Issue | Volume IX Issue XXII October 2025

Communication Strategies among Promoters During MATTA Fair

2025

Abdul Azim Mohamad Isa

, Muhammad Hashimee

, Khadijah Khalilah Abdul Rashid

, Fitri Nurul’ain

Nordin

, Muhammad Nursafwan Hazeman

, Fitri Zakiyah

1,4

MARA University of Technology

Islamic International University Selangor

Islamic International University Malaysia

Sultan Ibrahim Islamic College University Johore

Muhammadiyah University of Yogyakarta

*Corresponding Author

DOI:

https://dx.doi.org/10.47772/IJRISS.2025.922ILEIID0043

Received: 26 September 2025; Accepted: 03 October 2025; Published: 22 October 2025

ABSTRACT

Communication is a crucial strategy in promoting products and packages. The aim of this research is to discover

the different types of communication strategies used by promoters during MATTA Fair 2025. Different

communication strategies are performed by tour package promoters when engaging with local customers who

love travelling from diverse backgrounds and preferences. Specific circumstances also evoke the kinds of

communication employed when encountering scenarios that trigger some suitable strategies. This study uses a

qualitative research method based on observations conducted at MITEC, Kuala Lumpur during MATTA Fair

2025. The findings from this study are expected to help tour package promoters increase sales through

appropriate types of communication according to the background of tourists.

Keywords: communication – promoters – strategies

INTRODUCTION

Communication is very crucial in promoting products and packages to persuade, and remind target markets about

products or services offered by organizations, individuals, or companies. Communication plays an important

role in influencing consumer behaviours and achieving marketing objectives. Through the appropriate use of

various communication tools and media, companies can build brand awareness, change consumer attitudes, and

encourage purchases. In the digital era, communicating with consumers efficiently and effectively has many

varieties of approaches, like media advertisement, short video and many more. But physical promotion still has

its own impact to encourage and persuade customers to purchase the products by proper communication among

promoters and customers.

The MATTA Fair is Malaysia’s premier travel exhibition, organized by the Malaysian Association of Tour and

Travel Agents (MATTA). It's celebrated as the largest international travel fair in the country, offering a one-stop

venue for visitors to explore enticing travel packages, discounted deals, and immersive experiences. There are

many exhibitors, including National Tourism Organizations, state tourism offices, travel agencies, hotels and

resorts, theme parks, airlines, and other travel-related services. The fair is held twice a year, between April-May

and September.

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Regarding the communication strategies, Arifin (1994) outlined six techniques to shape the impact of

communication, which are redundancy, canalizing, informative, persuasive, educative, and coercive.

Redundancy is repeating the message to increase attention and retention, while canalizing is leveraging group

influence by initially aligning with group values and gradually shifting toward the desired message. When

successful, resistance to new influence diminishes. The informative technique is conveying factual and accurate

information. Then, a persuasive technique is influencing through emotional or rational appeal—even suggestive

influence. The educational technique on the other hand is providing systematic knowledge or experience to

promote change. The fourth is a coercive technique which is forcing acceptance via authority or pressure.

When conducting promotions to customers or consumers, companies need to design an appropriate

communication strategy. This involves selecting communication channels that are appropriate for the target

consumer. For example, if the primary target consumer is millennials who are active on social media, the

company needs to focus promotions on social media platforms popular among that generation. Furthermore,

creating a promotional message that is relevant, engaging, and easily understood by consumers is also key to a

successful promotion. Promotional messages must capture consumers' attention, convey clear information, and

encourage them to take action.

LITERATURE REVIEW

According to Girsang (2020), good communication in product promotion is a crucial aspect of a company's

marketing strategy. When promoting products or packages to the customers, companies need to use effective

communication to ensure their message is well-received by the public. Good communication encompasses

several factors, such as good communication must be clear and easy for the customers to understand. Promotional

messages must be delivered concisely, concisely, and without confusion. Using overly technical language or

jargon can make the customers feel confused and run away from the booth. Therefore, companies need to use

simple and easy-to-understand language to ensure their message is clearly conveyed. Furthermore, good

communication must also be relevant to the target customers.

Credibility is also an important factor in communications when promoting products. The customers tend to be

more receptive to messages from companies with a good and trusted reputation, or popular and familiar persons.

Therefore, companies need to have professional communication teams to provide attractive approaches for

persuading customers. The customers will be more open and receptive to promotional messages from companies

that can attract their attention. Companies need to choose the right communication channel to deliver their

promotional messages. Each communication channel has its own unique characteristics and advantages, and can

reach different target customers. For example, using interesting and attractive videos as supporting evidence to

convince more customers. By understanding customers’ behaviour and preferences, companies can choose the

most effective and efficient communication channel to reach their target market (Lee & Lee, 2023).

Another proven strategy of outsourcing sales promoters to prospect for customers is through inter-personal

communication and developing pre-purchase arousal for products and services by analysing behavioural drivers

that influence consumers' leisure shopping behaviour and measure customer value through empirical

investigation in Mexico. Consumers are influenced in making buying decisions by the product attractiveness and

pre-purchase arousal generated by the sales promoters (Rajagopal, 2008). Strong influence towards audiences

and potential customers can be gained by some changes for both operations and communications strategies

(Rundin & Colliander, 2021).

Solomon (2024) stated that personalized communication, product presentation, and follow-up services have a

significant positive impact on consumer purchase decisions. Key recommendations include enhancing sales

representatives' skills in communication, improving property presentation methods with digital tools,

maintaining structured follow-up systems, and reassessing trust-building approaches to ensure transparency and

reliability.

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Impactful communication strategies also showed significant results in other than marketing fields such as health,

corporate, and other sectors. In the health sector, advocacy ensured smooth community entry into the project

area, resulted in a shared understanding of the strategies, approaches and activities, and the communication

strategy ensured that the key messages were tailored to the needs of local communities. The use of media (a local

radio station and public address system) as a key communication strategy enhanced information dissemination

to the target population, and response teams from the frontliners used communication and engagement strategies

that enhanced community members’ participation and addressed the needs of low-literate members of the

community (Corbin et al., 2021). Meanwhile, in the corporate sector, the collective perception of company

attractiveness towards stakeholders, impacts business outcomes, while effective communication strategies play

a critical role in shaping and maintaining the reputation. The role of communication is highlighted during crises,

crisis communication being a strategic approach to managing and mitigating the impact of unexpected or adverse

events on the reputation, operations, and stakeholders (Nuortimo et al. 2024). Communication strategies help

maintain consistent messaging. Consistency gets the attention of customers, both old and new.

As for the impact of having effective communication strategies in other daily activities and routines (Zhou et al.,

2024) discovered that analyzing communication networks reveals strong connections that could hinder collective

action if information circulates solely within villages. Conversely, weak connections act as crucial links

encouraging market dynamics. They emphasized trust as a powerful method to overcome these issues stemming

from normative, communicative, and trust-related factors that pose significant obstacles to collective efforts.

METHODOLOGY

This study applies a qualitative method by observing the promoters with their consent during promoting their

vacation packages and tourism products. Observation is considered as one of qualitative techniques in collecting

data other than interview and content analysis. Observation is a fundamental qualitative research method for

gathering non-numerical data by systematically using the researcher's senses to understand behaviours,

interactions, and phenomena in their natural settings (Satapathy, 2019). It provides rich, subjective insights into

what people do and the meanings they attach to their actions, focusing on details and patterns rather than

quantifiable results (Ugwu & Eze, 2023).

Consent forms were distributed to fulfil the ethical procedure to each promoter and visitor to get their approvals.

All of them were informed that their identities were confidential, and they knew that they were coded by Vis

X.X. After explaining the anonymization status, and the results will not reflect to any of the visitors personally,

and showing the checklist used during the observation, all the visitors and promoters signed the consent form as

an agreement of participation in the research. The consent form and the checklist can be referred to Appendix 1

and Appendix 2.

The researcher chose three promoters from different companies to get detailed data on them to observe that

individual's behaviours over a set period by using scan sampling. Scan sampling is a behavioural research

technique where an observer rapidly records the behaviours of all individuals in a group at set, regular intervals

to determine activity budgets or the percentage of time individuals spend on different activities (Trocino et al.,

2023). The three promoters were chosen by these following criteria:

Promoter 1: Male, mid 20’s, local vacation package

Promoter 2: Female, mid 30’s, local vacation package

Promoter 3: Male, mid 40’s, international vacation package

The researcher coded Promoter 1 as Pro 1, Promoter 2 as Pro 2, and Promoter 3 as Pro 3.

Then, the researcher watched them promoting their package to five customers or visitors to their booth. By taking

time consuming and surrounding factors into account, five visitors for each promoter are considered suitable and

efficient enough to analyse the techniques used during the observation.

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The researcher coded five visitors to Promoter 1 as follows: visitor 1 as Vis 1.1, visitor 2 as Vis 1.2, visitor 3 as

Vis 1.3, visitor 4 as Vis 1.4, and visitor 5 as Vis 1.5. The same technique of coding is applied to five visitors to

each Promoter 2 and Promoter 3.

Then, the researcher documented the findings through a checklist that represents Arifin communication

technique (1994).

Table 1: Technique used by Promoter 1

Technique

Vis

1.1

Vis

1.2

Vis

1.3

Vis

1.4

Vis

1.5

Redundancy

✔

Canalizing

✔

Informative

✔

Persuasive

✔

Educative

✔

Coercive

✔

Table 2: Technique used by Promoter 2

Technique

Vis

2.1

Vis

2.2

Vis

2.3

Vis

2.4

Vis

2.5

Redundancy

✔

Canalizing

✔

Informative

✔

Persuasive

✔

Educative

✔

Coercive

Table 3: Technique used by Promoter 3

Technique

Vis

3.1

Vis

3.2

Vis

3.3

Vis

3.4

Vis

3.5

Redundancy

✔

Canalizing

✔

Informative

✔

Persuasive

✔

Educative

✔

Coercive

✔

After filling up the checklist, the researcher interpreted the data as follows in findings and discussion.

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FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

Followings are frequency of communication techniques applied by Promoter 1, 2 and 3.

Table 4. Pro 1’s frequency of communication techniques

Techniques

Number

Percentage (%)

Redundancy

32.65

Canalizing

26.53

Informative

14.29

Persuasive

24.49

Educative

20.41

Coercive

2.04

Total

100

The data indicate that redundancy emerged as the most frequently used strategy, accounting for 16 instances

(32.65%). This suggests that Promoter 1 often relied on repetition or reiteration to reinforce messages and ensure

comprehension. Canalizing was the second most prevalent technique, with 13 occurrences (26.53%), reflecting

efforts to guide communication in a particular direction to achieve intended outcomes. Persuasive strategies were

also widely applied, appearing 12 times (24.49%), which underscores the speaker’s attempt to influence attitudes

or decisions (Perloff, 2017).

Table 4 presents the distribution of communication techniques employed by Promoter 1. In contrast, educational

techniques were observed in 10 instances (20.41%), highlighting a focus on providing clarification and

enhancing understanding. Informative communication was less frequent, with 7 cases (14.29%), indicating that

straightforward information delivery was not the primary approach. Finally, coercive techniques were employed

only once (2.04%), making it the least utilized strategy, which implies a minimal reliance on forceful or

authoritative means of communication.

Overall, the findings suggest that Promoter 1 favoured reinforcing and guiding strategies (redundancy and

canalizing) over coercive or purely informative approaches, indicating a communication style that emphasizes

persuasion and message reinforcement rather than compulsion.

Table 5. Pro 2’s frequency of communication techniques

Techniques

Number

Percentage (%)

Redundancy

30.00

Canalizing

18.33

Informative

10.00

Persuasive

23.33

Educative

18.33

Coercive

Total

100

Table 5 illustrates the frequency of communication techniques employed by Promoter 2. The results demonstrate

that redundancy was the most frequently applied strategy, with 18 instances (30.00%). This indicates that

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Special Issue | Volume IX Issue XXII October 2025

Promoter 2 often reinforced messages through repetition to enhance clarity and retention. Persuasive

communication followed closely, appearing 14 times (23.33%), suggesting a strong emphasis on influencing the

audience’s attitudes or decisions (So & Song, 2023; Braca & Dondio, 2023).

Both canalizing and educative techniques were observed at an equal frequency, each recorded 11 times (18.33%).

These findings highlight Promoter 2’s tendency to guide communication toward specific objectives while

simultaneously providing explanatory or instructional input. Informative techniques, by contrast, were employed

on only six occasions (10.00%), showing a relatively lower reliance on the straightforward delivery of facts.

Notably, coercive communication did not occur at all (0%), suggesting that Promoter 2 avoided the use of

forceful or authoritative means to achieve communicative goals.

Overall, the data reveal that Promoter 2 prioritized strategies of reinforcement, persuasion, and guided

communication while deliberately minimizing reliance on coercion or purely factual information. This pattern

suggests a communicative style oriented toward audience engagement and message reinforcement rather than

directive or forceful approaches.

Table 6. Pro 3’s frequency of communication techniques

Techniques

Number

Percentage (%)

Redundancy

22.39

Canalizing

17.91

Informative

11.94

Persuasive

28.36

Educative

13.43

Coercive

5.97

Total

100

Table 6 presents the distribution of communication techniques employed by Promoter 3. The findings reveal that

persuasive communication was the most dominant strategy, with 19 instances (28.36%). This suggests that

Promoter 3 placed significant emphasis on influencing others’ perspectives or actions through persuasive means.

Redundancy was the second most frequently used technique, appearing 15 times (22.39%), which indicates a

considerable reliance on repetition to reinforce the intended message. Canalizing occurred 12 times (17.91%),

reflecting efforts to steer communication toward specific directions or desired outcomes (Oyibo & Toyonaga,

2024).

Educative techniques were observed in 9 instances (13.43%), pointing to a moderate focus on providing

clarification and fostering understanding. Informative communication appeared 8 times (11.94%), suggesting

that straightforward delivery of factual content was not the primary approach. Interestingly, coercive techniques

were employed in 4 cases (5.97%), making them the least frequent but still more evident than in the practices of

Promoter 1 and Promoter 2. This highlights Promoter 3’s occasional reliance on authoritative or forceful

communication strategies.

The data demonstrate that Promoter 3 favoured persuasive and reinforcing approaches while also incorporating

a broader range of techniques, including coercion to some extent. This pattern indicates a more varied

communicative style compared to Promoter 1 and Promoter 2, balancing influence, repetition, guidance, and

occasional authority. All promoters applied most of Arifin communication techniques and all of them managed

to sell their vacation package to at least one customer for each promoter.

CONCLUSION

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Special Issue | Volume IX Issue XXII October 2025

In summary, educational techniques were used by the promoters to visitors between 20 - 40 years old due to

background studies they made before purchasing the packages, especially when they were asking about specific

features offered (Spasova, 2023). The informative technique was used frequently by newly married couples for

having their honeymoon, and also by some older visitors who are in their 50’s years old (Manca, 2016). Although

not all persuasive techniques recorded 100% success, out of five visitors that came to each promoter, at least one

visitor had purchased or closed deals with the promoters. As for the coercive technique, one customer actually

closed the deal after Promoter 3 had pressured him by telling the remaining slot was decreasing as they were

talking (Haytko et al., 2017).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The researcher would like to express his gratitude to the Academy of Language Studies for sponsoring the fee

of this article publication.

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APPENDIX 1.

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APPENDIX 2.

Promoter X

Technique

Vis X.X

Redundancy

Canalizing

Informative

Persuasive

Educative

Coercive