The tourism conundrum


The good old days: File photo of tourists in George Town’s Armenian Street. — The Star

TOURISM Malaysia has posted the latest figures on foreign tourist arrivals on its website. Last year, the total number was 4,332,722, a drop of 83.4% compared with 26,100,784 in 2019. It will take a long time for Malaysia to receive an average of more than two million foreign tourists monthly, as we did in 2019.

I am certain we will not even reach two million for the whole of this year because actual arrivals for nine months last year, from April to December, was only 99,267. If this rate were to be repeated this year, we may get a few hundred thousand foreign tourists – mainly from Brunei, Singapore and Thailand – who can enter Malaysia by road.

Limited time offer:
Just RM5 per month.

Monthly Plan

RM13.90/month
RM5/month

Billed as RM5/month for the 1st 6 months then RM13.90 thereafters.

Annual Plan

RM12.33/month

Billed as RM148.00/year

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