2015 is the Year of Festivals for Malaysia. The tagline, “Endless Celebrations”, showcases Malaysia as a tourist destination with bountiful and diverse cultures and festivities.
The Malaysian Tourism Promotion Board (popularly known as Tourism Malaysia) under the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Tourism is tasked to promote Malaysia domestically and internationally. One of the functions of Tourism Malaysia is to organise effective promotional tourism programmes. One hundred fifty-one festivals and events are listed in the Tourism Malaysia calendar for 2015 (Figure 1).
The number of tourism events peaked from April-May and dipped in July, slowing down towards the end of the year (Figure 1). Tourism Malaysia has covered and advertised their events in every state, albeit the distribution frequency is not even among all states. The Federal Territories (KL, Putrajaya and Labuan), where the commercial and administrative capitals are located, receive the most event coverage, while Malacca and Perak have only one event each in 2015. Penang has 10 events carried in the official Tourism Malaysia calendar.
