MALAYSIA has recently topped the ranks in being the most loved country in Asia, beating other popular tourist destinations such as Thailand and Japan and South Korea.

The study by Insider Monkey has included 20 Asian countries in its research to see which country is the most preferred travel destination.

Malaysia came in first place scoring high at 0.701, with its high rankings on all the metrics set in the study which are:

- Respect rank

- Visited rank

- Friendliness rank

- Diversity rank

- Democracy rank

Based on the metrics provided, Malaysia obtained a high score of eight in the respect rank while in the visited rank, the nation scored five and two in the friendliness rank.

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Meanwhile, Malaysia scored 14 and six in the diversity and democracy rank respectively.

“Moreover, it is the fifth most visited country in Asia, welcoming over 10 million travelers in 2022,” the study said.

The countries that came in the top five were Taiwan, ranked second, Singapore in third place, Japan in fourth place and United Arab Emirates in fifth place.

Other countries included in the study were Oman (20), India (19), Hong Kong (18), Sri Lanka (17), Bahrain (16), Jordan (15), Nepal (14), Vietnam (13), Indonesia (12), Thailand (11), Saudi Arabia (10), Turkiye (9), Israel (8), Philippines (7) and South Korea (6).

According to Insider Monkey, the ranking of the 20 countries was based on five previous articles which were 15 most respected countries in Asia, 15 friendliest countries in Asia, 20 most visited countries in Asia, 20 most diverse countries in Asia, and 20 most democratic countries in Asia.

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From these articles, each country was graded according to the metrics from the five articles.

“It was observed where a country ranked on each metric, and then it was assigned scores accordingly depending on each metric’s weight,” the study added.