Malaysia’s strict lockdown regulations resulted in low hotel occupancy at the beginning of 2020. Some hotels were considered as essential services and were allowed to operate during the Movement Control Order (MCO) enacted between 18 March and 4 May 2020.
Once the country started phasing out restrictions with the Recovery Movement Control Order (RMCO) phase, domestic tourism and interstate travel was permitted to begin in July 2020, marking the beginning of the reopening of luxury hotels in Malaysia. However, border closures still prevented international tourists from arriving in the country, forcing luxury hotel players to refocus their strategies on domestic tourism.
After consideration of the risk factors of COVID-19, the Ministry of Tourism jointly with the Ministry of Health Malaysia announced a domestic travel bubble, which enables fully vaccinated individuals as well as those unvaccinated under the age of 18 to travel to Langkawi Island from September 2021. This move boosted demand for luxury hotels situated on Langkawi Island such as the Four Seasons Langkawi, St Regis Langkawi and Ritz-Carlton, all of which can now benefit from this relaxation of the rules.
The outlook for the recovery path of luxury hotels in the forecast period in Malaysia looks slow. An important factor to recovery will be international tourism, although currently the flow of tourists in the forecast period does not looking promising.
The reopening of international borders by the Malaysian government in October 2021 to welcome international tourists to Langkawi Island is a pioneer project. At the time of writing, quarantine was not required as part of the travel bubble with travellers having to take an RT-PCR test for COVID-19 on the second day of arrival starting from 15 November 2021.
Towards the end of 2021, Malaysia started to become more proactive in boosting domestic tourism locations to international visitors again. Participation of Tourism Malaysia at the virtual PATA Wellness and Luxury Travel Conference and Mart 2021, focused on consumers’ priorities.
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Understand the latest market trends and future growth opportunities for the Luxury Hotels industry in Malaysia with research from Euromonitor International's team of in-country analysts – experts by industry and geographic specialisation.
Key trends are clearly and succinctly summarised alongside the most current research data available. Understand and assess competitive threats and plan corporate strategy with our qualitative analysis, insight and confident growth projections.
If you're in the Luxury Hotels industry in Malaysia, our research will help you to make informed, intelligent decisions; to recognise and profit from opportunity, or to offer resilience amidst market uncertainty.
Luxury: includes luxury and upper upscale hotels. Would generally include 5-star hotels and above, but may include some “4.5-Star” outlets, provided that the brands positioning warrants it. The luxury classification is primarily determined by the brand’s positioning and marketing, which will be at the high-end. Brand examples include Marriott, Hilton, Sofitel and InterContinental.
See All of Our DefinitionsThis report originates from Passport, our Luxury Hotels research and analysis database.
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