INBOUND tourism industry players should know where most visitors to Malaysia are from and focus on these markets to get more customers. 

Two valuable PDF files are posted on Tourism Malaysia’s website. One is about “Tourist arrivals to Malaysia by country of nationality until September 2023”, and the other, “Excursionist arrivals to Malaysia”. They contain the latest statistics on foreign visitors.

Naturally, accommodation providers would be more interested in tourists who spend one or more nights in Malaysia than excursionists who come and leave on the same day. All foreign visitors to Malaysia contribute to tourist or excursionist arrivals each time they enter the country.

In 2019, 2.56 million foreigners, or 9.8% of the total 26.1 million tourists, came to Malaysia to visit friends and relatives. In the second quarter of the same year, the percentage was an astonishingly high 25.5%/

The first nine months of this year logged 14,467,037 tourist arrivals, with Singaporeans making up 5,985,812, or 40.7%. Interestingly, in the four years from 2012 to 2015, more than half of all foreign tourists to Malaysia were Singaporeans, averaging 12.9 million per year.

But after that, the percentage dropped to 49.6% in 2016, 47.9% in 2017, 41.1% in 2018, and 38.9% in 2019, averaging 11.6 million per year. Singaporeans not only contributed the most tourist expenditure here, but they also spent the third highest based on per person per day.

We also received large numbers of tourists from other Asean countries, especially from Indonesia, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Combined, these five nations contributed 4,469,307 or 30.9% of tourist arrivals to Malaysia.

Five medium-haul countries are important markets for Malaysia, and they also offer huge potential. They are China, India, South Korea, Australia, and Taiwan. Together, they contributed 2,265,631, or 15.7%, of total tourist arrivals in the first nine months of this year.

Nationalities from the 11 countries stated above provided a massive 87.3% of all tourist arrivals, with the rest of the world the remainder 12.7%. Therefore, promotional efforts should focus more on these countries that are contributing the largest numbers and have the greatest potential. 

Apart from tourist arrivals, other visitors who entered Malaysia but did not stay for at least one night were recorded as excursionist arrivals. Singaporeans topped the list with 4,651,172, or 73.5%, of 6,353,262 excursionist arrivals in the first nine months of 2023.

Thailand, Indonesia, Brunei, China, Philippines, India, South Korea, Australia, Japan, and the United Kingdom together made up 1,441,536 ,or 22.6%, of excursionist arrivals.

Other than the first three neighbouring countries stated above that could easily enter Malaysia by land just like Singaporeans, it was unlikely for most of the other seven nationalities to fly to Malaysia from their home countries and then leave on the same day.

One must realise that tourist or excursionist arrivals are based on nationality and not from which country they come from. There are large numbers of foreign workers and expatriates residing in neighbouring countries that make short visits to Malaysia for various reasons.

In 2019, Malaysia received 26.1 million tourist arrivals and 8.9 million more excursionist arrivals, making a total of 35 million visitor arrivals for the year. Excursionist arrivals from Thailand and Indonesia in the first nine months of this year have surpassed 2019 figures.

On the other hand, the largest number of tourist arrivals to Thailand from January 1 to November 12 were Malaysians at more than 3.8 million, whereas we received only 1,153,630 Thai tourists for the first nine months of the year, not counting 547,732 Thai excursionists.

Tourism industry players should know that shopping, accommodation and transport received 76.1% of total inbound tourism expenditure in 2019. As for domestic tourism expenditure, shopping, food and beverage, and automotive fuel took up 74.7%.

In any case, all foreign and domestic visitors are welcome, be they tourists or excursionists. And Malaysia is a great country to visit. Malaysians should make use of the many opportunities to show we are truly “mesra” (warm and friendly). – December 18, 2023. 

* YS Chan reads The Malaysian Insight.
 

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.