Malaysia recorded 23.65 million tourist arrivals in 2009. This was a significant increase of 7.2% compared to 22.05 million arrivals in 2008, surpassing the target of 19 million tourist arrivals set by the government earlier last year.

For the month of December 2009, tourist arrivals showed an increase of 4% with 2,141,071 tourists compared to 2,058,684 for the same month in 2008.

        Table 1: Comparison of tourist arrivals to Malaysia
                     (January – December 2008 and 2009)

MONTHS	TOURIST ARRIVALS 2008	TOURIST ARRIVALS 2009	CHANGE %
JANUARY – DECEMBER	22,052,488	23,645,839	7.2

           Source: Immigration Department of Malaysia


        Table 2: Comparison of tourist arrivals to Malaysia
                     (December 2008 and 2009)

MONTH	TOURIST ARRIVALS 2008	TOURIST ARRIVALS 2009	CHANGE %
DECEMBER	2,058,684	2,141,071	4.0

          Source: Immigration Department of Malaysia

The top ten tourist generating markets from January to December 2009 were: Singapore (12,733,082), Indonesia (2,405,360), Thailand (1,449,262), Brunei (1,061,357), China (including Hong Kong & Macau) (1,019,404), India (589,838), Australia (533,382), the Philippines (447,470), the United Kingdom (435,091) and Japan (395,746).

In terms of growth, the Iranian market registered the highest growth with 60.9% in 2009. Significant growth was also recorded for arrivals from Myanmar (39.9%), Laos (38.0%), France (27.9%), Australia (24.9%), Netherlands (22.4%), Vietnam (21.8%), Cambodia (21.7%), Italy (19.0%), United Kingdom (17.4%), Singapore (15.7%), Germany (15.0%), Canada (13.4%), the Philippines (12.5%), New Zealand (12.3%) and Russia (11.0%). 

The top ten tourist generating markets for December 2009 were Singapore (1,073,110), followed by Indonesia (255,840), Thailand (132,507), Brunei (127,370), China (including Hong Kong & Macau) (94,940), India (64,307), Australia (58,971), the Philippines (39,400), United Kingdom (36,966) and Japan (33,044).

Minister of Tourism, Malaysia, YB Dato’ Sri Dr. Ng Yen Yen said, “This showed that 2009 was a very successful year in terms of our efforts in aggressively promoting Malaysia as one of the preferred holiday destinations in the region. The achievement is much more meaningful to us considering the many challenges and crises that we had to face throughout the year such as the global economic crisis and the H1N1 outbreak.” she said.   

“I am also happy to announce that for the first time the Chinese tourist arrivals have reached a one million mark. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all our partners in the Malaysian travel trade industry and overseas, as well as members of the media, for their support towards this success.” she said.

For more information, please visit Tourism Malaysia’s online Facts and Figures at
http://www.tourismmalaysia.gov.my/corporate/research.asp?page=facts_figures.