GEORGE TOWN: The Penang government has pushed back against a recent report by the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM), which claimed that Perak outpaced Penang in attracting domestic tourists in 2024.
State Tourism and Creative Economy Committee chairman Wong Hon Wai described the findings of the Domestic Tourism Survey 2024 as unreflective of Penang’s actual tourism performance, saying the report was based on limited sampling and not grounded in actual visitor data.
“The survey is based on sampling and questionnaire responses, not actual hotel stay records,” Wong said in a statement today. “While survey methodologies have their place, their accuracy is highly dependent on sample size and representation.”
According to Wong, only 204 Enumeration Blocks (EBs) were sampled in Penang out of a nationwide total of 2,819, which he said was insufficient to portray Penang’s tourism strength accurately.
He pointed instead to Tourism Malaysia’s hotel statistics, which recorded 5.2 million domestic tourist arrivals and three million international guests in Penang in 2024—amounting to over 8.2 million hotel stays. By contrast, he said Perak registered just 4.18 million domestic hotel stays during the same period.
Wong also raised concerns over the survey’s methodology, which relied on household interviews where respondents were asked to recall their travels over the previous year.
“The retrospective nature of the survey is highly subjective. It was not conducted at airports, hotels or tourist sites, but through home-based interviews. This approach is less suitable for measuring actual tourist engagement in high-traffic destinations like Penang,” he said.
He further pointed out that 66.8% of the survey’s respondents were day-trippers, many of whom were likely returning to their hometowns during major festive periods such as Hari Raya.
“These visitors typically don’t stay overnight or contribute significantly to the tourism economy,” Wong noted. “Such visits should not be equated with genuine tourism, especially when measuring states with higher-value tourism offerings.”
While he acknowledged that DOSM’s survey may help track general travel trends, Wong stressed that it should not be used as a primary benchmark for tourism performance—particularly for states with robust hotel, hospitality, and international tourism sectors.
“Penang continues to be one of Malaysia’s premier tourism destinations. The data we should rely on are concrete figures from hotel stays and tourism receipts—not subjective survey recall,” he said.
