Malaysian Tourism - What Are We Trying To Sell To Foreign Tourists?

Last month during the tabling of Budget 2024, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim announced that Visit Malaysia Year will be set for 2026, instead of the initially scheduled 2025.

The Prime Minister said that the government has targeted 26.1 million foreign tourist arrivals in 2026 with domestic spending of RM97.6mil. Notably, the government has allocated RM350mil to boost tourism promotions and activities to make Malaysia the world's top tourist destination again.

It is worth noting that the number of targeted arrivals for 2026 is the same as in pre-pandemic 2019 at 26.1 million, but in terms of receipts, Malaysia is targeting 13% more tourist spending than the RM86.1 billion achieved in 2019.

With all that in mind, today we look into how we can best use that funding to best promote and support Malaysia’s tourism sector and as a tourism destination to achieve those stated goals, by taking a look at the success of past tourism campaigns, promotion, and branding, such as Malaysia Truly Asia.

Helping us with this conversation is Anna Loi, Co-Founder and Director of Content and Digital Marketing at Good & Honest Co., and Gary Bowerman, Director at Check In Asia.