Malaysia misses 2024 tourist arrival targets despite reporting over 25 million visitors

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – Malaysia recorded just over 25 million international tourist arrivals in 2024, falling short of its 27.3 million target that the tourism, arts, and culture ministry had set last year.

The total figure of 25,016,698 international tourist arrivals still marked a 24.2% increase from the 20,141,846 international tourist arrivals reported in 2023, its minister Tiong King Sing said in a written parliamentary reply on Tuesday.

Malaysia’s top tourist arrivals in 2024 were from Singapore with 9.1 million visitors, followed by Indonesia (3.65 million), China (3.29 million), Thailand (1.64 million), and Brunei (1.14 million).

It said that through its agency, Tourism Malaysia, it has allocated 10 million ringgit ($2.26 million) for promotional and development activities for various states this year compared to 7.6 million ringgit in 2024.

($1 = 4.4240 ringgit)

(Reporting by Ashley Tang; Editing by Sonia Cheema)

tagreuters.com2025binary_LYNXMPEL1408A-VIEWIMAGE