Festivals are always a draw, attracting people looking for fun and inspiration. But fun costs money, and balancing the bottom line well is what turns them into events that can run year after year.
Malaysia enjoys a plethora of annual religious and ethnic festivities, thanks to its multicultural population. From Hari Raya Aidilfitri to Chinese New Year and Deepavali, Malaysians have plenty to celebrate; we rank sixth in the Asia Pacific where the largest number of public holidays is concerned1! On top of that, festivals celebrated in one state may differ from another. For example, Songkran (Thai New Year) is celebrated in the northern states of the peninsula and Hari Gawai in Sarawak.
Apart from these religious and ethnic festivities, we also enjoy a range of arts festivals – and there are more of these than you might think; you need only to flip through the Ministry of Tourism’s calendar to see the list and to decide which festival to attend. With the aim of receiving 29.4 million tourist arrivals and RM89bil in tourist receipts2, the tourism campaign themed “Endless Celebrations” has made stakeholders and industry players very busy indeed.
Penang was ranked fourth in Lonely Planet's best places in the world to travel in 2016 for its “versatile exhibition spaces showcasing avant garde art, film, music and dance”3. In recent years, Penang has been hosting more and more arts and culture festivals. Many of these take place within the George Town Unesco World Heritage Site, such as the George Town Literary Festival and Tropfest South East Asia.
