Tourism in Malaysia


Malaysia was once ranked 9th
in the world for tourist arrivals. The Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report 2017 ranks Malaysia 25th out of 141 countries overall.
In an effort to diversify the economy and make Malaysia's economy less dependent on exports, the government pushed to increase tourism in Malaysia. As a result, tourism has become Malaysia's third largest source of foreign exchange income, and accounted for 7% of Malaysia's economy as of 2005.
The government agency in charge of promoting tourism in Malaysia is Tourism Malaysia or the Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board. On 20 May 1987, the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Tourism was established and TDC moved to this new ministry. TDC existed from 1972 to 1992, when it became the Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board, through the Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board Act, 1992.
In 1999, Malaysia launched a worldwide marketing campaign called "Malaysia, Truly Asia" which was largely successful and brought in over 7.4 million tourists. The extra revenue generated by tourism helped the country's economy during the economic crisis of 2008.

Types of tourism

Medical tourism

is popular in Malaysia, with the Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council reporting an arrival of 641,000 foreign patients in 2011, 728,800 in 2012, 881,000 in 2013 and 882,000 in 2014. Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council, a government agency with the aim of promoting medical tourism, was launched in 2009 as an initiative by the Ministry of Health.

Tourist arrivals

Tourist arrivals

In 2016, Malaysia recorded 26,757,392 tourist arrivals, a growth of 4.0% compared to 25,721,251 in 2015.
RankCountryVisitors Visitors Visitors Visitors Visitors Visitors Visitors
1Singapore10,163,88210,615,98612,441,71313,272,96112,930,75413,932,96713,178,774
2Indonesia3,623,2773,277,6892,796,5703,049,9642,788,0332,827,5332,548,021
3China3,114,2572,944,1332,281,6662,124,9421,677,1631,613,3551,791,423
4Thailand1,884,3061,914,6921,836,5221,780,8001,343,5691,299,2981,156,452
5Brunei1,216,1231,382,0311,660,5061,391,0161,133,5551,213,1101,238,471
6India735,309600,311552,739638,578722,141770,108650,989
7South Korea673,065616,783484,528444,439421,161385,769274,622
8Japan424,694394,540392,777413,768483,569553,106513,076
9Philippines421,908396,062370,559417,446554,917618,538557,147
10Vietnam400,346375,578248,927216,877229,626285,716235,700
11Taiwan382,916383,922332,927300,861283,224274,665286,266
12Australia368,271351,500351,232377,727486,948571,328526,342
13United Kingdom346,485361,335358,818400,269401,019445,789413,472
14United States269,928253,384198,203217,075237,768262,106246,936
15Bangladesh179,000150,054111,836114,607147,152204,418134,663
Grand total26,100,78425,832,35425,948,45926,757,39225,721,25127,437,31525,715,460

Destinations and attractions

Beside the main cities, there other town and places in Malaysia offer some special tourist attraction. Such as in Taiping, Perak for their landscape and local attraction. Teluk Intan for their Leaning tower. Genting Highlands, Cameron Highlands and Bukit Tinggi in Pahang for a cool climate. Muar in Johor is famous for its food. Miri is the official tourism-city and resort city of Sarawak and Sibu in Sarawak is famous for its landscape and parks.

Islands and beaches

Malaysia has several tropical islands. Some of the islands in Malaysia are: