Strong travel demand lifts Malaysia’s domestic tourism in 2025

Malaysia’s domestic tourism sector recorded a solid performance during the first nine months of 2025, registering 216 million local visitors with total expenditure reaching RM88.4 billion.

Chief Statistician Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said the figures reflected year-on-year growth of 11.8 per cent in visitor numbers and 13.7 per cent in spending, underscoring the sector’s continued recovery and expansion.

He noted that the encouraging trend was consistent with the performance of tourism-related industries in the third quarter of 2025, particularly retail and transport activities linked to domestic travel.

“Retail sales of automotive fuel rose by 6.3 per cent year-on-year, which mirrors sustained travel activity within the country,” he said in a statement today.

Mohd Uzir added that domestic airport arrivals increased by 11.4 per cent during the period, signalling strong mobility and continued demand for local travel among Malaysians.

The accommodation segment also showed notable improvement, with revenue rising 14.3 per cent compared with the same period last year. Occupancy rates stood at 68.8 per cent for five-star hotels, 69.9 per cent for three-star establishments and 62.8 per cent for four-star hotels.

In terms of location, hotel occupancy rates in urban areas rose by 1.2 percentage points to reach 64 per cent, reflecting higher demand for city-based travel and stays.

Mohd Uzir said domestic tourism continues to serve as a key pillar of the national economy, and the upward trajectory is expected to persist, further enhancing its contribution to Malaysia’s overall economic performance.

Meanwhile, he said Malaysia achieved a significant milestone in data governance after being ranked first globally for the first time in the Open Data Inventory (ODIN) 2024/25 report by Open Data Watch, outperforming 198 other countries.

He added that the OpenDOSM NextGen platform offers users a comprehensive data catalogue and visualisation tools to support data-driven analysis, accessible through the open.dosm.gov.my portal.

-ASEAN FOOD & TRAVEL