The Global Wellness Institute (GWI) has released its first report on the wellness economy of Malaysia, which is worth US$31.8 billion (€28.6 billion, £23.0 billion).

The report, created in partnership with sustainable food and wellness product company Green Wellness, shows that Malaysia ranks tenth among 45 countries in the Asia-Pacific region and 29th out of 218 countries worldwide.

The data shows the country’s top five wellness economy sectors (of eleven evaluated by the GWI) are:

• Personal care and beauty – US$11.83 billion (€10.6 billion, £8.5 billion)
• Healthy eating, nutrition and weight loss – US$4.55 billion (€4.1 billion, £3.3 billion)
• Wellness tourism – US$4.49 billion (€4.0 billion, £3.2 billion)
• Physical activity – US$3.64 billion (€3.3 billion, £2.6 billion)
• Public health, prevention and personal medicine – US$2.44 billion (€2.2 billion, £1.8 billion)

The sectors that have grown the most between the most recent data sets, 2023 and 2024, are:

• Wellness tourism (global ranking: number 26) – annual growth rate of 39.1 per cent, up from US$3.23 billion in 2023 to US$4.49 billion in 2024 
• Wellness real estate (global ranking: number 24) – annual growth rate of 29.3 per cent, up from US$1.37 billion in 2023 to US$1.77 billion in 2024 
  

Malaysia’s wellness economy has grown 9.9 per cent between 2023 and 2024. 

Pre-pandemic, the country’s wellness economy was worth US$27.69 billion in 2019. It recovered in 2023, with a value of US$28.9 billion. It grew 2.8 per cent between 2019 and 2024 to reach its US$31.8 billion mark.

The full 2019-2024 report is available on the GWI’s Geography of Wellness platform.