The relationship between economic factors and tourist arrivals in Malaysia / Nurul Farahin Abdul Razif

Tourism is now one of the world's largest and fastest growing industries. There are many countries have an interest to increase its economies using tourism. The demand for tourism nowadays is elevating since the number of tourist arrivals keeps increasing year by year. Most researchers found out that economic factors contribute to tourist arrivals in Malaysia. However, some of them stated that it have negative relationship towards the tourist arrivals in the country. This article is planned to measure and reveals the influence of gross domestic product growth, foreign direct investment (FDI), inflation rates and exchange rates towards tourist arrivals in Malaysia. In this study, the research used time series data result which approximately 30 regarding tourist arrivals in Malaysia yearly. The data were analyzed by using Multiple Regression Method to evaluate the relationships between the variables by EviewslO. This research runs data on different tests to find out the relationship between economic factors and tourist arrivals. The finding result of this research study has showed that gross domestic product growth, foreign direct investment and exchange rate have significant relationship towards tourist arrivals in Malaysia and the conclusion of this study were based on the researcher's findings. Thus, it is recornmended for the future study to conduct research in other sectors that will provide a large sample so that the result will be more accurate. This research study result was supported by the previous studies that presented at every research findings.