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Iman Muttaqin Yusof

Malaysia sees an opening in the Gulf travel disruption caused by the Iran war, pitching itself as a Muslim-friendly destination for travellers seeking halal food, prayer facilities and family-focused holidays.
But such gains could be limited because the conflict has not only weakened tourism within the Middle East, but also affected long-haul flight routes that Malaysia depends on to draw Muslim tourists, according to analysts.
The push comes as the six-month-old war continues to disrupt travel across the Gulf, where Dubai and Doha have long served as major destinations and aviation gateways for travellers moving between Europe, Asia and Africa.
“This crisis, this problem … we turn [it] into opportunity,” Mohammad Faisal Abu Suaib Khan, director general of Malaysia’s Islamic Tourism Centre, told This Week in Asia on Thursday.
“When the Middle East shuts down, people still want to travel. They still need an option where they can go,” he said, describing Malaysia as a natural substitute because of its established Muslim-friendly tourism ecosystem.
Dubai International Airport, the world’s busiest hub for international passengers, handled 31.5 million travellers in the first half of this year, down 31.3 per cent from the same period in 2025, according to Dubai Airports. Aircraft movements fell 32.1 per cent over the same period.
Flight cancellations, re-routing and soaring jet fuel prices have rippled well beyond the region, with major carriers including Lufthansa, British Airways and Singapore Airlines remaining cautious about restoring some services. On Tuesday, Finnair announced the suspension of Dubai flights for the coming winter season because of continued instability.

Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths said passenger volumes had nevertheless been climbing after two months of severe disruption, telling the Associated Press that “the trajectory now is universally positive”.
Malaysia has not escaped the fallout. Tourism Minister Tiong King Sing said on Monday that 4,111 scheduled flights to the country were cancelled in the first half because of geopolitical tensions in West Asia, with cancellations rising from just nine in February to 1,419 in June.
Seat capacity from West Asia fell from more than 1 million in the first half of last year to 806,532 in the same period this year, including a decline of more than 20 per cent in capacity from Europe routed through West Asian hubs.
Closer to home
Almost two-thirds of Malaysia’s population is Muslim, with Islam accounting for 63.5 per cent of the population in the country’s 2020 census. Halal food is widely available, while prayer rooms are common in shopping centres, airports and tourist attractions.
The country again topped the Mastercard-CrescentRating Global Muslim Travel Index this year, scoring 82 out of 100 and finishing ahead of Indonesia, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, with the latter three tied for second place.
There were 196 million Muslim international arrivals worldwide last year, up 11.3 per cent from 2024, with annual expenditure from these travellers forecast to reach US$310 billion by 2030.

Malaysia received a record 9.7 million Muslim visitors in 2025 and wants to raise that figure to 15 million by 2030, according to the tourism ministry. But industry data on the diversion of Gulf tourists to the country in recent months is not as clear-cut.
Fazal Bahardeen, founder and CEO of Muslim travel consultancy CrescentRating, said there had been “no significant shift of Gulf travellers to Malaysia”. Instead, the disruption is changing how Muslim travellers choose destinations.
“Travellers are opting for shorter trips rather than cancelling,” Bahardeen told This Week in Asia. “Proximity now matters as much as price.”
Muslim travellers from Asia, excluding those from the Gulf, were increasingly travelling within East Asia and Southeast Asia, he said, with Malaysia picking up travellers who might previously have considered the Gulf or Turkey.
That could favour Malaysia in the short term, but the Middle East contributed relatively few – albeit high-spending – tourists to Malaysia, meaning the impact on overall arrivals was likely limited, Bahardeen said.
Apart from Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and the Philippines are increasingly competing for Asian Muslim travellers.
These “novelty” destinations offered something Malaysia, for all its established Muslim-friendly infrastructure, had to contend with, Bahardeen said.

Hub trouble
But the bigger risk Malaysia may face is from the decisions of airlines rather than tourists, according to industry experts, who warn that the Middle East conflict could weaken the long-haul connections on which its tourism industry depends.
Bahardeen said travellers from Europe, Britain, Africa and the Middle East were heavily reliant on connections through Dubai and Doha to reach Malaysia.
His firm’s data showed Doha-Kuala Lumpur was the busiest route logged by international users of the HalalTrip mobile app last year, followed by Dubai-Kuala Lumpur, while Jeddah-Kuala Lumpur ranked fourth.
“If the disruption is short term, it favours Malaysia. If prolonged, it does not,” Bahardeen said.
The Strait of Hormuz – which carried about a fifth of the world’s oil supply before the war – remains severely disrupted despite US efforts to clear mines and diplomatic attempts to restore normal shipping. Ship-tracking services estimate traffic remains at just 5 to 15 per cent of normal volumes.
Malaysia has also been expanding direct links with the Gulf. Last month, Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh Air made Kuala Lumpur its first scheduled destination in Southeast Asia, with three weekly Boeing 787-9 flights. Tourism Malaysia has called Saudi Arabia a “high-yield” market.
Aviation analyst Shukor Yusof of Endau Analytics said Malaysia had been popular with Arab Muslim travellers long before the war and would remain so, but cautioned against treating the disruption as a simple contest in which Kuala Lumpur gained at Dubai’s expense.

“The situation in the Gulf is not exactly a zero-sum game,” he said. “Malaysia has been a favoured destination for Muslim travellers from the Arab world long before the Iran conflict. This will continue.”
Shukor said Malaysia should also look further afield for growth, pointing to Central Asia and Russia as “untapped regions” that Malaysia Airlines and the wider tourism industry could pursue.
Malaysia launched the fifth edition of Islamic Tourism Month on Thursday, with a revamped online platform allowing travellers to browse and pay for hotels, tours, spas, restaurants and other Muslim-friendly products in one place.
The month-long campaign begins on September 1 and forms part of the country’s Visit Malaysia 2026 drive, bringing tourism businesses, government agencies and communities together to market Muslim-friendly experiences to domestic and international travellers.


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With disruption to long-haul flights, Malaysia may not draw more Muslim visitors at the expense of the travel hubs in Dubai and Doha


With disruption to long-haul flights, Malaysia may not draw more Muslim visitors at the expense of the travel hubs in Dubai and Doha.


Why Malaysia’s push for 15 million Muslim tourists is no sure thing

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}With disruption to long-haul flights, Malaysia may not draw more Muslim visitors at the expense of the travel hubs in Dubai and Doha

With disruption to long-haul flights, Malaysia may not draw more Muslim visitors at the expense of the travel hubs in Dubai and Doha