National Key Economic Areas - TOURISM

Where we are today

Malaysia is one of the world’s top destinations, in the top 10 in arrivals and top 15 in global receipts. Tourism is our fifth largest industry, generating RM37 billion in GNI in 2009. The industry is expected to continue growing with arrivals rising from 24 million in 2009 to 36 million in 2020.

Vision the future

Malaysia’s growth in tourism has mostly relied on growth in arrivals rather than yield: 75 percent of growth has been from increased arrivals and 25 percent from increased yield. Going forwards, we must focus on growing yield. To attract the higher yield segment, we will need to both improve and upgrade our offerings and services and enhance connectivity to our key priority markets.

Targets and aspirations

The tourism industry is targeted to raise total GNI contribution by RM67 billion to reach RM104 billion by 2020. This will require the sector to triple from the starting position of RM37 billion in 2009.

This incremental increase is driven by 12 EPPs, which will deliver RM28.4 billion in incremental GNI and three business opportunities that will deliver RM28.6 billion in incremental GNI. In achieving this, an additional 497,000 jobs will be created.

A total of 12 EPPs have been developed across six themes to deliver significant results within a 10-year timeframe.

1—Affordable luxury: Shopping currently accounts for 28 percent of our total tourism receipts, compared to 35 percent in Singapore and 57 percent in Hong Kong. We will position ourselves as a shopping destination and aim to grow shopping receipts to 35 percent by 2020.

2—Nature adventure: Malaysia aims to become one of the world’s best offerings of biodiversity. We target to have a recognised network of different biodiversity sites of international calibre, which will be developed and/or rehabilitated and allow for tourist participation in rehabilitation activities.

3—Family fun: This theme primarily targets the rapidly growing middle-class of India, China and the Middle East, which represent about 48 percent of global population but only 13 percent of global tourism departures, and offers them a destination in Southeast Asia for family entertainment.

4—Events, entertainment, spa and sports: Malaysia lags our neighbours in the magnitude and variety of events as well as in our nightlife offerings. Hosting more international events and promoting a vibrant nightlife is necessary to attract tourists and provide a boost to the tourism industry.

5—Business tourism: Business tourism represents a small part of our industry, with just 5 percent of total arrivals and 19 percent of receipts (2009), unlike Singapore, where it accounts for 30 percent of tourist arrivals and 40 percent of receipts. We believe there is potential to further grow this segment.

Cross-theme projects—Medium-haul connectivity and better quality hotels: Two cross-theme projects will support delivery of the other projects: enhancing connectivity to priority medium-haul markets and improving the rates, mix and quality of our hotels.

Enabling growth

Achieving our aspirations will require RM204 billion in funding over the next 10 years. Of this funding, only 2 percent is expected to come from the public sector. We have identified four sector-wide enablers critical to unleashing the sector’s full potential. They are increasing and focusing our marketing in priority markets; re-introducing selective visa on arrival; ensuring an adequate supply of qualified human capital; and improving the tourism environment by improving offerings and accessibility (e.g. taxi services), access to funding and quality of front-line staff.

-PEMANDU.