Malaysia’s tourist arrivals amidst the Covid-19 pandemic

The economy of a country depends on various industries such as manufacturing, agriculture, construction, communication, energy, healthcare, and tourism. All these industries contribute a lot to the economic growth. Thus, the tourism industry plays an essential part in contributing to the economic sector in a country. The tourism industry faces many challenges, which include the most recent pandemic and the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Therefore, this research studied the trend of international tourist arrivals in Malaysia and their arrivals during two periods, before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The main goal of this research is to assist in the preparation of recovery from various parties, such as tourists, tourism managers, and the government. In this research, the data obtained were from Tourism Malaysia for monthly international arrivals from January 2000 until March 2022. The findings of this research were based on a time frame study that highlights before and after of the COVID-19 pandemic, where the pandemic happened in March 2020, as Malaysia enforces its lockdown, and the tourism industry is most affected. The trend pattern observed shows a drastic decline in 2020 after the pandemic declaration. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was measured by using a paired sample test using Wilcoxon signed-rank test. It was conducted on the number of international tourists from before and after March 2020, the start of lockdown in Malaysia. The findings of this study showed that the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted tourist arrivals in Malaysia.