摘要：The main objectives of this research are to study the tourist visiting patterns from several and major Malaysian tourist markets and to analyze the impact of their per capita expenditures on the Malaysian economy. Descriptive analysis from the secondary data and the Input-Output (I-O) analysis are utilized in this study. Results from the secondary sources have shown that the purposes visiting Malaysia were mainly due to holidays and business reasons. Differences in purpose of visit lead to some differences in their per capita expenditures during their visit in this country. With respect to tourist per capita expenditures, tourists from West Asia (represented by Saudi Arabia) are found to be the highest spenders with an amount of RM7,968.60, followed by tourists from Asia and Pacific (represented by Australia, RM3,952.70), Europe (represented by United Kingdom, RM3,699.00) and the United States (RM2,870.50). Expenditures by these tourists gave great impacts on the Malaysian economy in terms of increment in the output, value added, tax revenues, employment and imports. Findings from the I-O analysis indicated that tourists from the West Asia had recorded the highest contributor to the output by a sum of RM10,650.09, followed Asia and Pacific (RM6,571.41), Europe (RM6,250.76) and the United States (RM4,873.51). The West Asia market was also managed to generate approximately 0.59 additional employment opportunity, followed by Asia and Pacific (0.246), Europe (0.192) and the United States (0.140).
