PETALING JAYA,Mar 10: International tourist arrivals to Malaysia plunged 83.4% in 2020 because of the Covid-19 pandemic, Tourism Malaysia said.
It said the country registered a total of 4,332,722 foreign visitors during the year compared with 26,100,784 in 2019.
Total tourist receipts were also down by 85.3% from RM86.14 billion in 2019 to RM12.69 billion in 2020, it said in a statement.
The government agency said the short-haul market recorded the biggest decline at 83.5%, followed by the medium-haul market (-84.7%) and long-haul market (-79.7%) because of the closure of international borders.
However, it said Malaysia was not alone in registering negative growth in the number of visitor arrivals, with Asia and the Pacific recording an overall 84% drop in arrivals.
Asean countries, which are part of the short-haul market, remained Malaysia’s top contributor with a 68.1% share of tourist arrivals, it said.
The top five contributors of overall tourist expenditure were from Singapore, Indonesia, China, India and Thailand.
Arrivals from Singapore totalled 1,545,255, followed by Indonesia (711,723), China (405,149), Thailand (394,413), India (155,883), Brunei (136,020), South Korea (119,750), Japan (74,383), Australia (72,680), and Vietnam (64,184).
