JULY has always been the peak season of the tourism industry not only for Malaysia but also for our neighbouring countries like Indonesia and Thailand. In Malaysia, last year we recorded 24.6 million tourist arrivals surmounting both the official target of 19 million and the 23.6 million notched up in year 2009. However, in terms of yield from this sector, it was noted by the Tourism Minister that ours was still lower compared to Singapore's and Thailand's. About 75% of Malaysia's tourism growth has been due to the increase of tourist arrivals compared to only 25% growth from yield. In comparison, 65% of Singapore's growth was driven by tourist arrivals while 35% of growth was attributed to yield. Thailand had the reverse situation, where 42% of growth was due to tourist arrivals and 58% was due to yields, reflecting that it is attracting higher spending tourists.
If we look at our tourism products, we are still behind in attracting certain market segment due to limited or rather lack of variety in our tourism products. A notable trend in tourism now is a growing demand for private luxury villas at top resort destinations as an alternative to hotel accommodation as well as an investment portfolio. If one tries to Google for Asia's 20 top luxury villas in South-East Asia, the first few in the list appears to be luxury villas either in Bali, Indonesia or Thailand, two countries in this region which have been vigorously promoting luxury tourism leveraging primarily on their natural settings from beachfront to hills and forests as well as the wide paddy fields. This trend has also sparked Philippines and Vietnam to promote similar products capitalising on their natural assets.
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