KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 23 — Malaysia welcomed a whopping 13.35 million international tourists and recorded a 6.8 per cent growth in tourist receipts from a year ago, thus contributing RM41.69 billion to the country’s revenue during the first half of 2019 (1H2019).

Tourism Malaysia in a statement today said tourism’s performance also saw growth in terms of per capita expenditure, rising by 1.9 per cent to RM3,121.6, while the Average Length of Stay (ALOS) climbed by 0.4 nights to 6.2 nights.

According to the statement, the top 10 international tourist arrivals for the first half of 2019 were from Singapore (5,381,566), Indonesia (1,857,864), China (1,558,782), Thailand (990,565), Brunei (627,112), India (354,486), South Korea (323,952), the Philippines (210,974), Vietnam (200,314) and Japan (196,561).

"Asean arrivals continued to dominate the share of tourist arrivals to Malaysia with a 70 per cent contribution. The medium-haul market and long-haul market occupied a 20.8 per cent and 9.2 per cent share respectively.

"Overall, the performance of the short-haul, medium-haul and long-haul markets registered a positive increase with growth of 4.7 per cent, 7.1 per cent and 1.8 per cent respectively, compared to the first half of 2018,” it said.

Meanwhile, Tourism Malaysia said the top five countries with highest receipts were Singapore (RM11.56 billion), China (RM7.09 billion), Indonesia (RM5.71 billion), Thailand (RM1.70 billion) and Brunei (RM1.52 billion).

The top five countries with highest expenditure per capita were Saudi Arabia (RM11,376.90), United Kingdom (RM5,241.5), Canada (RM4,593.1), China (RM4,546) and United States (RM4,537.90).

The top five countries with the highest average lengths of stay were Saudi Arabia (10.5 nights), France (8.7 nights), Germany (8.3 nights), Netherlands (8.1 nights) and Canada (7.7 nights).

In 2018, Malaysia registered 25.8 million tourist arrivals and RM84.1 billion in tourist receipts, placing it among the major tourism destinations of the world. — Bernama