PUTRAJAYA (Feb 27): The country has missed its tourist arrivals target for the eight straight year, Tourism Malaysia said today, citing a drop in the number of Singaporean tourists as the reason.
Malaysia recorded 25.83 million tourist arrivals in 2018, missing its target of 26.4 million, and down 0.4% as compared with its 2017 figure of 25.95 million.
Singaporean arrivals fell 14.7% to 10.62 million in 2018 compared with 2017, Tourism Malaysia director-general Datuk Musa Yusof said at a press conference to announce the 2018 performance.
Asked on the reason for this scenario, Musa said there have been a few reasons, including traffic congestion on the Johor-Singapore Causeway and changing travelling trends among Singaporeans.
“For Singaporeans, they are looking for new and different experiences as opposed to just being in the city,” he said, adding that Tourism Malaysia is stepping up its promotion campaigns in the republic, with a focus on getting Singaporeans to visit more places in Malaysia, including the east coast of the peninsula.
Musa said Singaporean arrivals remain important to Malaysia as it makes up the bulk of the volume. However, moving forward, Malaysia wants to increase the number of visitors from other countries.
“The Singapore base is big, so when there is a bit of drop in number, we can feel it. So we cannot be dependent on them alone. It’s not that they’re not important, but we need to prioritise other areas such as increasing medium and long haul travellers who will come in and spend more,” he said.
He noted that while Singaporeans frequent Malaysia, they mostly spend only two to three days in the country.
Regardless, Musa said Tourism Malaysia remains positive that it will be able to meet its 2019 target of 28.1 million tourist arrivals and RM92.2 billion tourist receipts.
“It is important that the per capita expenditure and tourist receipt numbers increase. We may report less tourist arrivals however, if more people are spending, then that is good for the country,” he said.
Musa added that Tourism Malaysia will focus on enhancing connectivity by working with airlines to open up more travel routes. It will also ramp up its 'Visit Malaysia' promotion campaigns across the globe.