LETTER | Over the years, Tourism Malaysia has been posting tourist arrival figures to Malaysia and the nationalities of the top 45 countries, usually after three months at the end of each quarter.

For example, tourist arrival figures from January to March would be posted in early July. But this time, Tourism Malaysia uploaded a “Malaysia Tourism Highlight” for January to March 2024 on the last day of July.

The report disclosed there were 5,812,000 tourist arrivals and tourist receipts of RM22.2 billion, giving a per capita expenditure of RM3,825.46. The top five nationals were from Singapore (2,020,299), Indonesia (852,649), China (758,772), Thailand (406,459) and Brunei (285,590).

Interestingly, 51.5 percent of entries into our country were by road, 41.3 percent by air, 5.3 percent by sea and 1.9 percent by rail. The top five international air terminals were KLIA Terminal 1 (1,009,757), KLIA Terminal 2 (840,341), Penang (264,970), Kota Kinabalu (167,771) and Senai (30,725).

The top five entry points by road were the Johor Causeway (1,231,771), Second Link (991,371), Sungai Tujoh at Miri (168,638), Bukit Kayu Hitam in Kedah (143,726) and Padang Besar in Perlis (95,736).

The top five international jetties were Stulang Laut in Johor (58,651), Port Klang (58,190), Langkawi (38,805), Penang (22,529) and Kukup in Johor (18,395).

Foreign excursionists

Apart from tourist arrivals, figures for excursionist arrivals were also provided. Lest we forget, foreign tourists are those who spend one or more nights in Malaysia, whereas foreign excursionists are day trippers entering and leaving our country the same day.

The top five excursionist arrivals were nationals from Singapore (1,683,666), Thailand (213,776), Brunei (147,703), Indonesia (120,038) and China (65,369). Their modes of transport were by road (90.4 percent), air (7.3 percent), rail (1.9 percent) and sea (0.4 percent).

In March 2023, I projected 24 million tourist arrivals to Malaysia for 2024. In December, I wrote “Be ready for 24m tourists in 2024” and identified their nationalities and grouped them into regions.

Last year, I predicted their share for 2024 would be Southeast Asia (69 percent), East Asia (16.5 percent), South Asia (5.5 percent), Europe (3.5 percent), Oceania (1.5 percent), North America (1.2 percent), Group of 10 countries (1.2 percent) and rest of the world (1.6 percent).

In February, the then Tourism Malaysia director-general Ammar Abd Ghapar said he is confident of achieving 27.3 million foreign tourist arrivals this year, citing supporting factors such as the government’s charter flight matching grant incentive, visa liberalisation programme, and increasing tourism promotion activities abroad.

On April 30, Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Tiong King Sing disclosed that there were 5.8 million tourists in the first quarter of 2024.

On June 7, Deputy Tourism, Arts, and Culture Minister Khairul Firdaus Akbar Khan was reported to have said new data shows Malaysia recorded approximately 7.5 million foreign tourist arrivals in the first quarter of 2024.

But on June 24, Khairul told Parliament that Malaysia recorded 7.56 million foreign tourist arrivals from January to April this year, compared to 5.93 million in the same period last year.

Hoping for better momentum

On July 19, Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi disclosed that Malaysia received 9.48 million international tourists by May. If arrivals for the first five months are repeated over the next seven months, the total for the year will be 22.75 million.

During a media interview in early July, Tourism Malaysia director-general Manoharan Periasamy was reported to have said his key performance indicator is to welcome 27.4 million foreign tourists this year.

For Visit Malaysia Year 2026 (VMY 2026), the targets are 35.6 million tourist arrivals and RM147.1 million in tourist receipts.

Last December, tourist arrivals were 2,323,378 for the month but dropped to 1,771,571 in January, 1,952,043 in February and 2,088,386 in March.

Hopefully, the momentum will continue to pick up and the tourism industry gets to enjoy bountiful harvests for this year and the next, and VMY 2026 and beyond.

YS CHAN is a master trainer for Mesra Malaysia and Travel & Tours Enhancement Course as well as an Asean Tourism Master Trainer. He is also a transport and training consultant and writer.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.