KUALA LUMPUR, April 1 — Malaysia’s overseas travellers increased last month despite the ongoing Middle East conflict, mainly boosted by visitors from the Asean and Asian regions, with countries such as China and Indonesia showing the strongest growth.
Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing said Malaysia had 2,835,724 (2.8 million) international visitors for March 1 to March 26 this year, which is a 2.4 per cent increase compared to the 2,769,305 (over 2.76 million) for the same period last year.
The South-east Asian region or Asean remains the largest contributor with 2,093,096 (2.09 million) arrivals last month, and grew by 0.6 per cent when compared against the same period last year.
Visitor numbers from the Middle East had a significant decline of 40.3 per cent year-on-year to 4,398 arrivals last month, which Tiong said reflects the impact of ongoing geopolitical tensions.
But as a whole, Tiong said Malaysia’s tourism sector remains stable and resilient as its overall international visitor arrivals continue to have positive growth.
“These figures demonstrate that while certain markets are affected, Malaysia’s tourism sector continues to be supported by strong growth across key regions, particularly within Asia and Asean,” he said in a Facebook post yesterday, after having listed all the regions which grew or declined year on year in terms of visitors numbers to Malaysia.
East Asia is the region with the second highest contribution to Malaysia’s total international visitors’ numbers, with 407,171 visitors from there in March 2026, representing a 12.8 per cent increase from last year.
Within the East Asia region, China showed a strong growth in visitor numbers — 22.7 per cent more travellers from China visited Malaysia in March 2026 when compared to March 2025.
In terms of visitor arrivals to Malaysia, other countries with top growth percentage-wise are Indonesia (28.2 per cent) and Australia (22.2 per cent).
Tiong said there have been no cancellations of flight routes to Malaysia to date, but instead, new routes are being added and more flight frequencies introduced to connect Malaysia with other countries.
These new and expanded flight routes since January this year link Malaysia to countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines, Timor-Leste, China, Sri Lanka and Algeria, based on Tiong’s Facebook posts.
“These developments reflect continued confidence in Malaysia as a key aviation and tourism hub in the region,” he said.
He said Malaysia will focus on high-value segments, the premium travel market, as well as Muslim-friendly tourism to make the country a preferred destination for Muslim travellers worldwide.
He said Malaysia’s top priority for tourism promotion includes China, Indonesia, Thailand, Japan, South Korea, India, Bangladesh and Vietnam.
The ministry said Malaysia will also focus on long-haul visitors from Kazakhstan, Russia, France, Germany and Australia, while Tiong also listed Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Timor-Leste, Ukraine, Denmark, Switzerland, Türkiye and Poland as countries that Malaysia would engage with to ensure diversification and long-term resilience.
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