21mil tourist arrivals in first half of 2026, but pace slackens

 Minister says the growth rate of 2.5% was the lowest for the corresponding period since the post-pandemic recovery began.

Tourism, arts and culture minister Tiong King Sing said arrivals from 26 of Malaysia’s 50 key source markets registered a decline from January to June. (Bernama pic)

PUTRAJAYA:

Malaysia recorded more than 21 million international visitor arrivals in the first half of 2026, an increase of 2.5% over the same period last year, despite geopolitical tensions in the Middle East that led to the cancellation of 4,111 scheduled flights to the country.

Tourism, arts and culture minister Tiong King Sing said Tourism Malaysia and immigration department data showed 21,118,039 arrivals between January and June, up by 514,958 or 2.5% from 20,603,081 previously.

However, he said, the growth rate was the lowest for the corresponding period since the post-pandemic recovery began, with arrivals from 26 of the 50 key source markets registering a decline.

“This is primarily due to the impact of geopolitical tensions in the Middle East on international flight operations which, in turn, affected outbound travel markets worldwide,” he said when presenting the first half 2026 performance report here today.

Tiong said Europe and the Middle East were among the most affected markets, with arrivals from two of the three major European markets, Britain and Germany, declining, while France recorded growth.

He said Germany recorded negative growth for the first time since the tourism market began recovering after the pandemic, while arrivals from Turkey, Russia, Spain and Poland increased.

Markets such as the Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Egypt were affected to varying degrees.

“The conflict also drove up international fuel prices, raised the cost of outbound travel, and impacted travel from other regions, including India in South Asia, as well as Chinese Taipei and South Korea in Northeast Asia,” he said.

Tiong said sustained growth in arrivals from Singapore, the Philippines, China, Central Asia, Oceania and North America helped Malaysia maintain an overall growth of 2.5%.

He said Malaysia received 88,058 international flights during the first six months of the year, compared with 91,486 flights originally scheduled.

Although 4,111 flights were cancelled because of geopolitical tensions, the addition of 683 new flights brought the final total to just 3,428 flights, or 3.7%, below the original schedule.

“The impact of the Middle East conflict is clearly reflected in flight operations. Since the conflict began in February, the number of scheduled flights cancelled each month has continued to rise,” he said.

Only nine flights were cancelled in February, but the figure rose to more than 300 in March, nearly 1,000 in April and 1,419 in June.

Actual seat capacity stood at about 17.63 million, 3.9% lower than the initial projection of 18.34 million.

Nevertheless, the figure represented a 6% increase, or an additional one million seats, compared with the 16.627 million seats recorded during the same period last year, Tiong said. - FMT