GEORGE TOWN: Penang not making it to the top five in the list of popular tourist destinations for 2022 by the Statistics Department (DOSM) has got the local tour industry players coming to its defence and extolling its beauty.

Expressing surprise at the findings, Association of Tourist Attractions Penang (Atap) chairman Ch’ng Huck Theng questioned the methodology used in the survey.

“The methodology and the adequacy of the sample size are questionable,” he said, adding that other top destinations like Kota Kinabalu, Melaka and Pulau Langkawi also did not get their states into the top five.

“We have done superbly well until the first quarter of this year. We, in the industry, especially Atap members, know this well because we are owners of tourist attractions,” he said yesterday about the data findings.

In its data for 2022, DOSM listed Selangor as No. 1 with 22 million visitors, followed by the Federal Territories of Kuala Lumpur (16.9 million), Sarawak (15.5 million), Perak (14.6 million) and Pahang (13.2 million).

Ch’ng said many people chose Penang because of its food, pleasant weather and people, apart from its sandy beaches and lush greenery.

“We are also rich in arts, culture and heritage, with our George Town Unesco World Heritage Site and Penang Hill Biosphere Reserve being internationally acclaimed.

“These are the strengths we have built over the years through the government, people, associations and institutions.

“I would say Penang is the best place in Malaysia to visit, invest, study and do medical tourism,” he said.

Penang Tourist Guide Association chairman Clement Liang said the survey might not truly reflect the actual scenario, adding that there was no way to actually track domestic visitors in the country.

“The definition of a domestic visitor is too wide. It can be visiting friends, staying in hospitals, attending meetings or returning to one’s hometown. This may not truly reflect the visitors’ activities,” he pointed out.

Liang said that in Penang, group tours from schools or corporations were the ones who needed the services of tour guides to coordinate their programmes.

“Penang and Melaka are always on the list of preferred destinations due to their Unesco World Heritage Site status,” he said.

Malaysian Association of Hotels (MAH) Penang chapter chairman Tony Goh said after borders reopened in April last year, hotels in Penang had been generally happy with their performance.

“In total, MAH hotels alone have 16,000 room inventories and those in Penang are achieving between 60% and 80% occupancy rates on weekends,” he said.

According to the DOSM findings released on Monday, there were a total of 171.6 million domestic visitors, with 207.8 million trips recorded and RM64.1bil in total expenditure.

Five main purposes of trips were listed: visiting friends and relatives (33.7%), shopping (29.9%), holidays or leisure or relaxation (16.4%), incentive travel or others (8.9%), and medical treatment or wellness (5%).

Shopping accounted for the most expenditure at 38.9%, followed by food and beverage (15.2%), purchase of automotive fuel (13.8%), accommodation (9.3%), expenditure by visiting households (7.6%), transportation (7.5%), other activities (4%), and expenditure before trip, package, or entrance fees (3.7%).

The year 2019 recorded the highest amount of total domestic tourism expenditure at RM103.2bil while the lowest was in 2021 at RM18.4bil.