As reported earlier, tourism in Malaysia for the first half of 2026 saw significant growth.
Not only was there a 2.5% increase in visitor arrivals from January to June this year, but the 21.12 million arrivals recorded also broke pre-pandemic numbers.
Compared to the same six-month period in 2019, this year’s arrivals increased by 17.7%.
Amped up promotions and attractive deals, in line with the mission of nationwide tourism campaign Visit Malaysia 2026, have no doubt helped with the growth.
The second half of the year is gearing up to welcome even more visitors, with music and sports events set to attract both local and international participants and spectators.
One of the most highly-anticipated events is the upcoming two-day concert by K-pop super group BTS. According to Trip.com, on its platform’s concert pre-sale day on June 4 for the BTS Arirang World Tour in KL (Dec 12 and 13), activated users surged by more than 640%.
The platform also sold over 12,000 concert tickets and welcomed more than 24,000 new members. Over half of the travellers that made bookings for the concert period were first-time users.
Another major event that is drawing visitors to Malaysia is the Formula 1 race, which will be making its long-awaited return to the Sepang International Circuit (SIC) in Selangor.
Following the announcement of the Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia 2026, which will be held Oct 2-4, there was a surge in hotel and flight bookings for the race period.
Globally, accommodation in Sepang became the top five most-searched “hotels” on Trip.com, and hotel bookings in the district grew to more than 1,600%. International flight bookings to Kuala Lumpur also saw over double year-on-year increase.
Meanwhile, Traveloka has also shared what its data revealed about the Formula 1 tourism opportunity. It described the race window (Oct 1-5) as already tracking as a “four to eight times demand” event.
Searches for flights into Malaysia are up 4.3 times and for KL accommodation, it is up 7.9 times against expected seasonal trends. There is almost a 4% hotel search-to-book conversion during the period, which is double the usual rate in late September.
Flight conversion is also growing close to one percentage point, which shows that there is genuine intention to travel for the event.
Regional interest
Currently, the highest regional demand comes from neighbouring Indonesia. It is likely to be the primary source for race-weekend visitors, as the country accounts for around 71% of flight bookings and 82% of hotel check-ins during the race period.
In terms of search interest, Thailand is emerging as the fastest-growing market. Another possible market is Australia. Even though bookings have yet to be made, search activity from Australia has shown significant increase following the race announcement.
Other than these two events, there are also a few more big ones taking place up until December.
These include concerts by rock bands Evanescence and My Chemical Romance, popular sports events like the Standard Chartered Marathon, Penang Bridge International Marathon, and another race in Sepang, namely the PETRONAS Grand Prix of Malaysia (MotoGP) 2026.
