Impact of Chinese Development on Long Term Tourist/Expats in Malaysia

The man in the street will see little, and the expat in the street, less (unless you're a Chinese expat in the country)

It looks like most of the investment in industry is oil and cars, so that's likely to bring jobs for Chinese expats and locals, but do pretty much nothing for most people.

China has been Malaysia's top investor for years so there is unlikely to be that much change.

One area that could cause issues is investment in real estate. Estate agents, in my experience, tend to have mummies and daddies who may not be married, so they tend to up prices whenever they can.

That can destroy an economy quickly.

Sorry for the slow response - thanks for getting back to me on this Fred. Really interesting to get your thoughts. Sounds like the average tourist or expat isn't really that impacted then by Chinese overseas investment then except for when it comes to retail estate prices? Certainly agree re economic sustainability.

As part of my current research i'm trying to see if Chinese businesses have changed tourism in Malaysia through the development of areas i.e the construction of new hotels, sports grounds, leisure resorts etc. But i appreciate it can be pretty difficult to determine who the actually funder is in these things.

@matthewgibson.  Your name don't sound like you are from China.  May I know the purpose of this project on Chinese tourism impact on Malaysia?  I am a Chinese from Malaysia and Singapore.  Both these countries are connected tightly by the same culture, race, food, relationships.  Regarding your question,  I can answer fairly well for JB area.  The Chinese had been building mega projects in Johor Bahru. The most successful are R&F Princess Cove (selling well for its close proximity to the JB custom checkpoint and only 1.5 km from Singapore. Many Malaysians who work in Singapore and stressed by the high rental costs there are flocking to rent properties in JB.  This rental and sales market had spread to China Country Garden @ Danga Bay.  The project is about 10,000 units of service apartment and I found out about 90% had been sold.  Their other projects are the mega city of Forest City which is near to the 2nd link from Iskandar Puteri to Tuas, Singapore.  Also Country Garden Tampoi area.  I guess the Chinese mingle well with the local Chinese from Malaysia and Singapore.  Many of us have relatives in China too. For tourism, my relatives from China enjoyed Sabah esp for diving purposes and they definitely enjoyed the Musang King durians in Malaysia.  For places of tourism, there's a couple in JB Expat group who travelled around Johor and make videos out of their trips.  You can google Youtube or Tripadvisors for more details. Also, noticed that the local JB folks prefer to live in landed properties in mature gardens like Taman Pelangi, Taman Sentosa, Century Garden, Permas Jaya, Austin and Desa Tebrau while the expats prefer quieter and newer areas like Puteri Harbour, Medini, Horizon Hills, Sunway which are nearer to the 2nd link to Singapore. Hope my explaination helps you in some ways.  Enjoy JB, Singapore and KL.

Hi there Lavenderong - sorry for the slow response! You guessed correctly - i'm actually from the UK. The project is actually my topic of choice for my dissertation for my MSc in China and Globalisation at King's College London. I'm someone who has been lucky enough to have travelled a lot of SE and East Asia as a tourist and i'm intrusted in both Chinese international relations and SE Asia's tourism sector - hence the choice of topic.

Thanks for the short overview  on Chinese projects and tourist activities - that's a really helpful start. I'd love to be able to visit projects such as the  R&F Princess Cove or Forest City in  Johor for myself and to chat to locals, expats and tourists about them. 

It sounds like Malaysia's Chinese culture and family connections are a strong draw for Chinese mainland tourists (as it is for myself!). Wasn't aware about the popularity with Chinese tourists so will look into that - is it mainly for water based activities?

All my research is purely qualitive (i.e based on literature i've read and interviews/questionnaires with people) and i'd encourage any relevent expats here to dm me. thanks again!     

I think the main impact of chinese investment in Malaysia is to attract more chinese as tourists. Other tourists wouldnt know about this or care. "Birds of a feather flock together" i think is appropriate. When chinese companies in China advertise in China the investments they make outside, it tends to attract chinese to those areas and things. As chinese investment has grown, the increase in chinese coming to Malaysia has been clearly seen.

The same happened in Hawaii in US. As Japanese investment grew there, so did japanese tourism.

Whats unknown is the goal. Is the goal of chinese investment purely economic or is it to increase chinese populations in the invested areas over time?