By YS Chan
TOURISM Malaysia had released the figures for foreign tourist arrivals to Malaysia for the first nine months of last year, and it was no surprise that the total number decreased by 78.6%, from 20.1 mil in 2019 to 4.2 mil in 2020.
The monthly arrivals for last year were 2.1 mil in January, 1.3 mil in February, 671,084 in March, 7,546 in April, 5,411 in May, 6,585 in June, went up to 18,660 in July, but back down again to 11,631 in August and up again to 16,131 in September.
These numbers were very much less compared to the monthly average of 2.1 mil recorded in 2019.
Initially, there was only a 1.4% drop of arrivals in January last year but felled by 35.5% in February due to the spread of the novel coronavirus and worsened to 71.3% in March. By then, the movement control order (MCO) was introduced on Mar 18.
Although the MCO was replaced by the conditional MCO (CMCO) in May and further relaxed with the recovery MCO (RMCO) from June, monthly visitor arrivals had dropped to only four figures monthly for April, May and June.
The RMCO boosted arrival numbers to 46,422 in the third quarter from 19,542 in the second quarter. But with the reintroduction of the CMCO in Kuala Lumpur, Selangor and Sabah from Nov 9, the number for the last quarter is likely drop to around 33,312.
If so, total arrivals for last year will be 4.3 mil, a decline of 83.4%, which will be remarkably close to the 83.5% that I had predicted three months ago as published in the article entitled Foreign tourist arrival figures are grim on Sep 3, 2020.
With COVID-19 infections spiralling instead of abating, foreign tourist arrivals for the first half of this year would be about the same as the six months from April to September last year, which was 65,964. Sadly, the total for this year will be much lesser than last year.
The only way for tourism industry players to survive is to secure business from domestic tourists and if this market is not enough to cover costs, it would be better to cease operations and restart at the right time.
It would be difficult for businesses such as hotels to operate but relatively easy for intermediaries, such as travel agents.
It should be noted that COVID-19 vaccines will not ‘cure’ the global recession and will not undo the damage already done by the pandemic.
Also, there are significant logistical and political hurdles to clear before mass vaccination is possible and tourists could travel freely.
Hopefully, the pandemic and economy will bottom-up from the middle of this year, and 2022 will be better than 2020, and continue its recovery phase in 2023 until we reach full recovery in 2024. In any case, it is prudent to be prepared for the worst while hoping for the best. – Jan 8, 2021
YS Chan is Asean Tourism Master Trainer for travel agencies, master trainer for Travel & Tours Enhancement Course and Mesra Malaysia (both programmes under Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture). He is also a tourism and transport industry consultant and writer.
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Focus Malaysia.
