KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia received 5.8 million foreign tourists from January to March this year, which was a growth of 32.5 per cent compared to 4.3 million for the same period last year.
Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing said the top ten tourist-generating markets for Malaysia were Singapore, Indonesia, China, Thailand, Brunei, India, South Korea, Australia, the United Kingdom and the Philippines.
“Besides that, from January to April 2024, Malaysia also received chartered flights from Nanjing, Chengdu, Zhengzhou, Chongqing, Xi’an, Shenyang, Nanchang and Guangzhou, totalling 22 charted flights every week from the said cities with an estimated 3,600 passengers arriving per week.
“As of the latest, we have 15 new additional routes, including Wuhan to Kuala Lumpur, Ahmeddabad to Kuala Lumpur, Incheon to Kota Kinabalu and Almaty to Kuala Lumpur,” he said while delivering his speech at Tourism Malaysia’s networking session on the strategic direction towards VMY2026, here today.
He added that the 30-day visa exemption for tourists from China and India as a part of the visa liberalisation plan has also been proven to boost tourist arrivals in Malaysia.
As such Tiong said visa facilitation, improved accessibility and flight connectivity are integral parts of the strategies to attract around 36 million tourist arrivals and generate potential revenue of RM150 billion in tourist receipts for Visit Malaysia Year 2026 (VMY2026).
Meanwhile, Tiong said besides ramping up high-impact and fast conversion strategies in marketing approach, all stakeholders need to leverage their strengths in all available sales and marketing channels to fulfill their potentials.
“We also need to ensure the readiness of destinations we are targeting including in each state while developing new, unique tourism products and packages, as well as niche tourism development, including nature-based tourism, culture and heritage, experiential and responsible tourism and many more.
“We will continue collaborating with Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad, the Ministry of Transport (MOT), as well as local international airlines to increase flight frequencies, new route development and seat capacity, especially from key markets such as West Asia, China, India and Korea,” he said.
