Average occupancy rates of hotels in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 2014-2023

In 2023, the average occupancy rate (AOR) for Kuala Lumpur hotels was 59.1 percent, an increase of around ten percent from the previous year. Kuala Lumpur’s hotel occupancy rates had seen a drastic decrease in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Even so, the hotel occupancy rate in Kuala Lumpur had been declining year-on-year even before the pandemic. 

Growing supply, not enough demand

Kuala Lumpur experienced a hotel construction boom in the mid-2010s, with yearly growth in the number of hotels built. However, demand has not kept up with supply, as the number of international guests to Malaysia, which made up the majority of the hotel guests in Kuala Lumpur, has remained stagnant in the last ten years. The increase in domestic hotel guests were still not enough to boost the AOR.

Kuala Lumpur as an international tourist destination

Nevertheless, Malaysia’s capital city of Kuala Lumpur, or locally known as KL, remained one of the most popular destinations in Southeast Asia, after Bangkok and Singapore. It offers tourists both sightseeing possibilities, such as the Petronas Towers, as well as a wide variety of shopping experiences, from high-end malls to local bazaars. KL's popularity contributed to more than 71 billion Malaysian ringgit in tourism receipts in 2023.