Malaysian government needs to take corrective measures to combat flattening tourist arrivals

Tourist arrivals in Malaysia was flattening in the past few years and the government needs to take corrective measures to reverse this trend, according to Maybank Kim Eng’s regional head of institutional research Wong Chew Hann.Wong said in her presentation at Invest Asia 2019, “We have actually seen the tourist arrival numbers flattening; in fact, it was down 0.4% last year to 25.8 million people. Two things the government can do is on visas: such as implementing multiple entry visas for visitors from single entry visas presently.”Although visitor arrivals to Malaysia alleviated over the past two years, tourism receipts continued to grow, and last year, it hit RM84.1bil with a growth of 2%, which is a record high.Wong said that the tourism industry’s importance to the Malaysian economy is growing, contributing to about 14.9% in 2017 from 10.4% in 2005.