IN July 2018, then Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Datuk Mohamaddin Ketapi said the 33.1 million tourists target for the year will be maintained, higher than the 2017 target of 31.8 million.
But these targets were missed by a mile as arrivals for 2017 and 2018 were only 25.95 million and 25.83 million respectively.
In July 2019, he expressed confidence in achieving 30 million tourist arrivals in 2020. He could have been right had it not for the COVID-19 outbreak, and arrivals for the year dropped to 4.3 million. International travel and the world continued to be gloomy the following year.
In April 2021, a reporter sought my views and wrote “Down to a trickle”. He quoted my projection of 132,000 tourist arrivals for the year, a plunge of more than 96% compared to the year before. In the end, 134,728 foreigners entered our country.
In 2022, I wrote that tourist arrivals were likely to reach 10 million. The official target initially was two million for 2022 but was revised to 4.5 million in June. The year ended with 10,070,964 tourist arrivals.
In March 2023, I wrote that we should target nothing less than 18 million tourist arrivals that year and achieve 24 million in 2024, 30 million in 2025, and 36 million in 2026. It was published in “Most likely more than 18m tourist arrivals this year”.
In August 2023, then Tourism Malaysia director-general Datuk Dr Ammar Abdul Ghapar said if nothing goes wrong, we can get 18 million tourists for the year.
Later, I stated we could get more than 19 million or even exceed 20 million. The total number that came last year was 20,141,846.
In October 2023 when tabling Budget 2024 in the Dewan Rakyat, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said the targeted number of foreign tourist arrivals for Visit Malaysia Year (VMY) 2026 is 26.1 million.
But four months later in February 2024, Tourism Malaysia stated that VMY 2026 aims to attract 35.6 million foreign tourists, a jump of 9.5 million in the targeted arrivals.
In the same month, Ammar said that Malaysia has set a target of welcoming 27.3 million tourist arrivals this year.
Last Tuesday, Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing disclosed that Malaysia received 5.8 million foreign tourists from January to March.
At this rate, the total for the year will be 23.2 million, which will be closer to the 24 million I projected two years ago.
However, tourist arrivals are bound to rise exponentially over the next few years, and I am optimistic that my projections made in 2022 will again turn out to be correct, and that is 24 million in 2024, 30 million in 2025, and 36 million in 2026.
If so, the 36 million tourist arrivals target set in the Malaysia Tourism Transformation Plan (MTTP) unveiled in 2011 will be realised.
MTTP targets were 36 million arrivals and RM168 billion in revenue by 2020, which were derailed by stagnated annual arrivals and followed by COVID-19.
In the decade from 2010 to 2019, tourist arrivals have plateaued, averaging 25.8 million a year. In 2019, the number was 26.1 million, not counting another 8.9 million foreign excursionists who entered our country but did not stay overnight, with many coming for shopping and dining.
If you wish to jump on the tourism bandwagon, it would be wise to invest in the four major sectors that combined, will receive more than 80% of tourism expenditures. They are shopping, food and beverage, accommodation and local transport. – May 2, 2024
YS Chan is master trainer for Mesra Malaysia and Travel and Tours Enhancement Course and an Asean Tourism Master Trainer. He is also a tourism and transport business consultant.
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Focus Malaysia.
Main pic credit: Bernama
