Foreign Visitors To Malaysia Spent Rm4 087 Or Rm348 Per Person On Average

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THE heading of a recent newspaper report “Tourist arrivals surpass pre-pandemic levels, revenue hits record RM106bil in 2024, says Tiong” is not entirely correct. But the error will go unnoticed by those who have yet to understand basic tourism terms.
This can be tested by examining the report’s first paragraph that reads “Malaysia attracted nearly 38 million international visitors last year, surpassing the pre-pandemic figure of 35 million in 2019, says Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing”.
At this juncture, if you are beginning to wonder whether the figures are for tourist arrivals or international visitors, you are on the right track. To understand arrival figures correctly, you must be able to tell the difference in tourism terms between visitors, tourists and excursionists.
Tourist arrivals apply to visiting foreigners that stayed at least one night in Malaysia, and international visitors include foreign tourists plus foreign excursionists that do not stay overnight in our country.
Last year, Malaysia recorded 25,016,968 tourist arrivals and 12,944,517 excursionist arrivals, making a total of 37,961,485 or almost 38 million visitor arrivals.
In 2019, we had 26,100,784 tourist arrivals and 8,944,841 excursionist arrivals, totalling 35,045,625 or surpassing 35 million.
In February 2024, I wrote “Malaysia recorded 29 million visitor arrivals in 2023” and in the first paragraph stated the number comprised 20,141,846 foreign tourists and 8,822,462 foreign excursionists, or a total of 28,964,208 foreign visitors.
Based on the title of my article, a Vietnamese newspaper published a report with the heading “Malaysia beats Thailand to become most visited in Southeast Asia this year”. But the number of tourists to Thailand in 2023 was 28.15 million, far higher than the 20.1 million to Malaysia.

Traditionally, the gold standard used for comparing countries is based on tourist arrivals, not visitor arrivals, just like countries are normally ranked according to the number of gold medals won during the Olympic Games, not the total number of gold, silver and bronze medals.
In the 2024 Paris Olympics, American stations telecasted the United States on top of the medal tally by adding up all the medals won when it was trailing behind China in the number of gold medals. The world witnessed that ‘rules-based order’ is made or changed by the US.
However, our tourism minister was not trying to give the impression to our own people or those in Asean that we have overtaken Thailand in inbound tourism, as our northern neighbour received 35.54 million foreign tourists last year compared to our 25 million.
Nevertheless, it is very important to include 13 million foreign excursionists that visited Malaysia in 2024. They may not pay for overnight accommodation in our country, but they spent RM4.5 bil on shopping, food and beverage, entertainment, transport and miscellaneous expenses.
Interestingly, foreign tourists spent an average of RM4,086.60 in Malaysia. Combining foreign tourist and excursionist expenditures, they totalled a hefty RM106.7 bil last year. Again, Singaporeans contributed a massive 18,855,680 or 49.7% of all foreign visitors to Malaysia.
Foreigners that do not spend overnight in Malaysia include the large number of shore excursionists from cruise ships that docked at our ports for several hours. About 1.5 million passengers disembark from over a thousand cruise ships for shore excursions annually.
Foreign excursionists spent an average of RM348 in Malaysia last year. If so, the average value of a foreign tourist in terms of expenditure was 11.7 times more than a foreign excursionist.
But all foreign visitors should be welcomed, as excursionists that have enjoyed their short stay in our country immensely are likely to return as tourists, and may also bring along family members and friends in tow, to relive and share the wonderful experience they had in Malaysia.
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 MMKtT. 
- Focus Malaysia.

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