Of tourism, thriving businesses and contribution to the economy

Tourism is huge money for many countries, including Malaysia. For Thailand, there’s an estimate that 20 percent of the GDP is related to tourism. Here are the top 10 most visited countries in the world. Thailand is number 10. For Malaysia, the number of tourists have always been healthy and there’s an estimate that for 2017, total tourists to Malaysia would exceed 30 million. In 2016, it was 26.8 million. Some information in an award winning travel site here. blog.malaysia-asia.my According to the site, the top 10 countries visiting Malaysia in 2016 were as follows: (The first three should remain the top 3 because one is near, with currency advantage. Another one is a very populous nation while China should soon overtake Indonesia I think.)

  • Singapore (6,596,452)
  • Indonesia (1,378,699)
  • China (992,463)
  • Thailand (864,453)
  • Brunei (637,369)
  • India (359,853)
  • South Korea (228,023)
  • The Philippines (220,163)
  • United Kingdom (206,313)
  • Japan (198,693)

Here’s another very good article talking about tourism in Malaysia. www.hospitalitynet.org It says, “Today, Malaysia is the 12th most-visited country in the world and the third most-visited country in Asia after China and Thailand. The Malaysian government has made great efforts to ensure that tourism plays an important role in the country’s economy. In 2016, travel and tourism directly contributed MYR58 billion to the country’s GDP equaling 4.7% of total GDP, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council’s economic forecast.” (4.7 percent of total GDP is very good. If it hits 31 million for 2017, this percentage is likely to rise further. LIKE) Malaysia’s retail development is also very healthy and ranked extremely high; third in the world. Do read the article in NST here.  So, when tourists come to Malaysia, it’s BUY BUY BUY. 🙂   (Pun intended in relation to property investment)
Tourism is great for many reasons. Malaysia gets more foreign currencies. Businesses get more businesses which in turn needs more workers and this would in turn meant that more people having more money to spend. This pushes up the domestic consumption which helps ensure more new businesses are set up. More hotels would need to be built which in turn helps the construction industry too. Beyond just hotels, assuming just 2% of all these tourists prefers AirBnB, that’s 53,600 rooms needed! Assuming these rooms were rented out at just RM100 per night by the owners, this would mean the owners have an extra RM5.36 million to spend. Using a multiplier effect of 4, this is RM21.44 million Now do we understand why property investment should also be something good for the long term? We have yet to even talk about the potential profits to airlines flying into Malaysia. Definitely good news for the economy when traffic grows  Let’s keep welcoming more of them! I think I should think how to profit from this too. Haha. Happy visiting Malaysia, Truly Asia everyone.
written on 6 June 2017
Next suggested article: Attention and Attraction, always a good addition. Penang has it


Comments

  1. […] what it says in full. Article in theedgemarkets.com In brief, the superb ranking is because of an influx of tourists, higher disposable income and government investments in infrastructure, all of which have provided a […]

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