PETALING JAYA: The pace of recovery in Malaysia’s inbound tourism is accelerating amid continued growth in the number of foreign tourist arrivals.
Tourism ground to a halt after the country shut its borders in March 2020 following the Covid-19 pandemic, with arrivals plunging from 26.1 million in 2019 to 4.3 million in 2020.
The reopening of the country’s borders in April 2021 finally set the stage for a recovery.
Tourist arrivals from January to June this year stood at 9.16 million.
On Aug 8, Tourism Malaysia director-general Datuk Dr Ammar Abdul Ghapar said the country would receive at least 18 million international tourists, which is more than the earlier target of 16.1 million.
He said the optimism is based on various factors – the increase in flight frequency, expansion of chartered operating flights and the allure of year-end holidays.
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Tourism's continted recovery is helping Malaysia's economy, which recorded a 2.9% growth in the second quarter of this year.
According to Bank Negara Malaysia, a continued recovery in inbound tourism partially offset the slower goods export growth.
Here's a closer look at which countries are driving the current recovery and where out visitors have been coming from over the years.
A calculation of Tourism Malaysia’s annual foreign visitor arrival figures by country since 2012 reveals Singapore as the top origin of inbound tourism.
Singaporeans made 109.3 million visits to Malaysia in total since 2012, followed by Indonesia (26.7 million), China (18.2 million), Thailand (14.3 million) and Brunei (11.3 million):
Here's how Malaysia compares to other countries in terms of inbound tourist arrivals:
my.Malaysia is a series of data stories that highlights interesting facts and figures on anything and everything related to Malaysia.
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