Tourism Malaysia said tourist receipts last year also plunged by 85.3% from RM86.14 billion in 2019 to RM12.69 billion in 2020.

It said the average per capita expenditure for 2020 declined by 11.3%, from RM3,300 in 2019 to RM2,928 in 2020.

“Negative growth had been observed for tourists from every market, namely short-haul market (-83.5%), medium-haul market (-84.7%), and long-haul market (-79.7%),” it said in a statement today.

Tourism Malaysia said according to the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), Malaysia was not alone in this matter as the Asia-Pacific region recorded an 84% decrease in arrivals.

Other Asean countries also saw a significant decline in the number of tourists including Thailand (-83.2%), Singapore (-85.7%), Vietnam (-78.7%) and Indonesia (-75%), it said according to data from the Pacific Asia Travel Association (Pata) and National Tourism Organisation (NTO).

Meanwhile, Asean countries or the short-haul market remained as Malaysia’s top contributor with 68.1% share of tourist arrivals (2,949,363) followed by the medium-haul market which includes East Asia and South Asia (20.1% or 870,314).

The long-haul market share in 2020 was 11.8% with 512,484 tourists from West Asia, the Middle East, America, Oceania, Europe and Africa.

The top 10 international tourist arrivals to Malaysia in 2020 were from Singapore (1,545,255), 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).

The top five contributors in terms of overall tourist expenditure came from Singapore, Indonesia, China, India and Thailand.