Tourism Malaysia had just released figures for foreign tourist arrivals in the first three months of this year, and it was no surprise that total numbers dropped by 36.8% compared to the corresponding period last year.
The decrease was minimal in January, from 2,195,684 in 2019 to 2,164,459 this year but plunged by 35.5% in February from 2,165,933 to only 1,397,912. With countries closing borders in March and with Malaysia implementing the Movement Control Order from March 18, arrivals for the month were reduced to a record low of 671,084 against 2,334,613 last year.
But the worst would be figures in the second quarter as only a trickle of selected foreigners could enter the country with none on leisure travel. International tourism ground to a halt during this period and hopefully will begin its slow recovery in the second half of this year. It will take a long time to return to 2019 levels when we had 26.1 million arrivals for the year.
Amazingly, there was an increase of arrivals in the first quarter from three of the 45 countries listed. They were Sri Lanka by 15.5%, Ukraine 5% and Saudi Arabia 33.3%. But more significant were actual numbers with Sri Lanka increasing by 1,073 to 8,011, Ukraine by 277 to 5,863 and Saudi Arabia by a hefty 5,802 to 23,240.
The biggest drops of visitors were from Singapore decreasing by 1,084,534, China 440,733, Indonesia 223,774, Brunei 183,612, and Thailand 157,934. These five countries accounted for 85% of the 2,463,775 fewer arrivals in the first quarter. Our tourism recovery will depend on how well we manage to restart the flow of these major tourist pipelines.
The views expressed here are entirely those of The True Net reader YS Chan.