PUTRAJAYA: Despite geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, Malaysia continues to record a modest rise in international arrivals, says Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing (pic).
The Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister said data from Tourism Malaysia and the Immigration Department showed a 2.5% increase in international arrivals in the first half of this year compared with the same period last year.
He added that the country received 21,118,039 international travellers between January and June this year, an increase of 514,958 from the 20,603,081 recorded during the same period last year.
Tiong said arrivals from 26 of Malaysia’s 50 major international source markets had declined, while the rest recorded increases.
“This is the lowest growth rate for this period since the post-pandemic recovery began, mainly because geopolitical tensions in the Middle East disrupted international flight operations and, in turn, outbound travel markets worldwide,” he said in a statement issued with his first-half 2026 progress report.
Tiong said the unrest in the Middle East also led to the cancellation of 3,428, or about 3.7%, of the 91,486 scheduled international flights to Malaysia.
“The impact of the Middle East conflict is clearly reflected in flight operations. Just nine flights were cancelled in February, but the figure rose to more than 300 in March, then nearly 1,000 in April and 1,419 in June,” he said.
He added that the sharpest decline was seen in flights from the Middle East, where seat capacity fell from more than one million seats in the first six months of last year to 806,532 in the first half of this year.
“This included Europe-bound flights transiting through the Middle East, where seat capacity decreased by more than 20% compared with the same period last year,” he said.
He noted that arrivals from France rose, but those from Britain and Germany decreased.
“In Europe, France was the only one of the three main source markets to record growth, while arrivals from Britain and Germany both fell.
“Germany, in particular, recorded negative growth for the first time since the tourism market began recovering after the pandemic,” he said.
However, Tiong said that arrivals from Malaysia’s key source markets in South-East Asia, including Singapore and the Philippines, as well as from China, Central Asia, Oceania and North America continued to grow.
