Malaysia Just Put 66 Farms and Orchards on Its Official Tourism Menu: Why Agritourism Now Builds Whole Countries (and How Your Farm Gets on the Next List)

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On 23 September 2026, at a launch in Kuala Lumpur, Tourism Malaysia unveiled 118 new tour packages for Visit Malaysia 2026–2027.

Sixty-six of them are farms.

Not shopping malls. Not theme parks. Not five-star resorts. Durian orchards. Harumanis mango farms. Cocoa. Pineapple. Tilapia ponds. Farmstays where city families learn to cook the way their grandparents did.

Read that number again. More than half of the country's newest tourism products start at a farm gate.

For decades, farmers have been told the same thing: "Tourists don't come to farms. They go to beaches and cities." Malaysia's own tourism board has just disagreed, in public, with packages ready to sell.

I host paying visitors on my own durian farm in Pahang, so I read this news with a farmer's eyes. And here is what most people missed: this is not really a story about 66 packages. It is a story about what happens to a country, a state and a village when the farm becomes the destination.

So in this article we will look at what Malaysia launched, the hard numbers behind it, what farm tourism has already done for Italy, Taiwan, Japan and the United States, and the exact steps a farmer can take to be on the next list instead of reading about it.

Musang King durians piled on a roadside durian stall in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the fruit at the heart of the Taste of Orchard agrotourism packages — Durian is the star of Malaysia's farm tourism push. A Musang King stall in Kuala Lumpur. Photo: avlxyz / Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.

What you will learn in this article

✅ What the 66 Taste of Orchard packages are and which crops they feature

✅ Why durian tourism package sales jumped about 15 times in one year

✅ How agritourism lifts a country, a state and the village around a farm

✅ What Italy, Taiwan, Japan and the US teach every farming nation

✅ A 6-step plan to get your farm into a government-promoted package

What Malaysia Actually Launched

The 118 packages fall under three new themes. Edu+ 2.0 has 29 packages for international students. EatVenture has 23 food and culinary packages. And Taste of Orchard has 66 agrotourism packages, the biggest group by far.

Bar chart of Tourism Malaysia's 118 new Visit Malaysia 2026-2027 packages: 66 Taste of Orchard agrotourism packages, 29 Edu+ 2.0 and 23 EatVenture — More than half of Malaysia's newest tourism packages start at a farm gate.

Taste of Orchard covers durian, Harumanis mango, cocoa, gula apong (Sarawak's nipah palm sugar), empurau (one of Malaysia's most prized river fish) and pineapple. Visitors explore orchards, agro-education sites, community-based tourism villages and working farms. Some packages are full farmstays, where guests learn about tilapia farming, durian orchard management and traditional cooking in one place.

Red cocoa pods growing on a cocoa tree, one of the crops featured in Malaysia's Taste of Orchard agrotourism packages — Cocoa is one of the six Taste of Orchard crops. Cocoa pods on the tree (illustrative). Photo: Forest and Kim Starr / Flickr, CC BY 2.0.

Tourism Malaysia's director-general, Mohd Amirul Rizal Abdul Rahim, gave two reasons at the launch. First, the government wants to diversify tourism and depend less on conventional products. Second, these niche packages are meant to bring visitors back again and keep them in the country longer.

He also listed who should earn from them: farmers, homestay operators, tour guides, food entrepreneurs, craft makers and small businesses. Remember that list. It is the whole argument of this article in one sentence.

Why farmers should pay attention

Here is the part that matters to your bank account. A farm that sits inside a government-promoted package does not have to find every visitor alone. Tourism Malaysia promotes the package. Licensed tour operators sell it, often to overseas markets. The farm delivers the experience.

We already know this model works, because Malaysia tested it on durians first.

Bar chart of Tourism Malaysia durian tourism package sales: RM107,000 in 2022, RM1.6 million in 2023 and a target of more than RM2 million for 2024-2025 — Same fruit, new packaging: durian package sales grew about 15 times in one year.

In 2022, Tourism Malaysia's durian tourism packages sold about RM107,000. In 2023, they sold RM1.6 million. That is roughly 15 times more in a single year. For 2024 and 2025, the agency rolled out 62 durian packages through 27 tour operators in 12 states, aiming for more than RM2 million in sales, with promotional material printed in Mandarin for China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore.

Prices ran from RM70 per person for durian eating in Kampung Relau, Kedah, up to RM4,450 for a three-day, two-night durian holiday in Bentong's Bilut Hills in Pahang.

That spread tells you something powerful. The same fruit can be sold as a RM70 snack or a RM4,450 holiday. The difference is not the durian. It is the experience wrapped around it.

Field-Tested Play: Sell the afternoon, not the kilo

A kilo of durian is a commodity with a market price you don't control. A guided afternoon in your orchard, with a tasting, the story of your trees and a photo under the canopy, has no market price. You set it. Before you join any package, write down one 2 to 3 hour experience and the price per person that makes it worth your time.

How Agritourism Helps a Country

Let's start with the big picture, because farmers are rarely told how much their farm gate matters to the national economy.

Malaysia tourism statistics 2025: 42.2 million foreign visitors, RM110.6 billion travel receipts, 15.9% of GDP and 3.7 million jobs — Tourism is one of Malaysia's biggest industries. Farm tourism lets rural areas share in it.

Tourism is now one of Malaysia's largest industries. According to the Ministry of Finance's Economic Outlook 2027, the country welcomed 42.2 million foreign visitors in 2025, up 11.2%. Travel receipts climbed from RM95.4 billion to RM110.6 billion. The industry made up 15.9% of GDP and supported about 3.7 million jobs, or 22.1% of all employment. On top of that, the Department of Statistics counted 290.1 million domestic visitors who spent RM121.3 billion.

So where does a durian orchard fit into an industry that big? In four ways.

1. It spreads tourism money beyond the cities. Malls and city hotels already take the lion's share. A farm package sends spending down rural roads, into towns that will never have a Twin Towers.

2. It turns crops into national brands. Malaysia exported RM1.10 billion of durians in 2025, and China took about 79% of that. China imported US$7.5 billion of fresh durian in 2025 alone. A tourist who eats Musang King under the tree it grew on goes home and asks for Malaysian durian by name. No advertising budget can buy that.

3. It makes visitors stay longer and come back. The Ministry of Finance itself says the industry must now push up visitor spending and length of stay. A farmstay adds nights. A fruit season gives people a reason to return every year.

4. It keeps farmers farming. Researchers at Rutgers University studied New Jersey farms and found agritourism had a clear, positive effect on farm profitability, with the biggest gains on small farms run by full-time farmers. A farm that stays profitable stays a farm. Every orchard that survives is food security, green space and heritage a country does not lose.

How Agritourism Helps a State

Countries run the campaigns, but states feel the money. Malaysia's own numbers show it.

How agritourism helps Malaysian states: Perlis Harumanis sales up from RM31.1 million to RM44.5 million, Penang hotel bookings up 40 to 50% in durian season, Pahang top for domestic tourists — When a state builds its identity around a crop, the farms and the state promote each other.

Perlis and the Harumanis. Malaysia's smallest state has one superstar fruit. The Harumanis name was registered with MyIPO in 2011, so only Perlis mangoes can carry it. In 2024, the state expected about 2,693 growers on roughly 1,612 hectares to sell RM44.48 million of Harumanis, up from RM31.08 million the year before, at local prices of RM25 to RM45 a kilo. The Raja Muda of Perlis named it one of the state's key attractions for Visit Perlis Year. One fruit became the state's calling card.

A ripe red mango beside fresh mango cubes, like the Harumanis mangoes that made Perlis famous — Perlis built a whole state brand on one mango. A ripe mango (illustrative). Photo: Forest and Kim Starr / Flickr, CC BY 2.0.

Penang and the durian season. In 2025, Penang's state tourism chairman said hotel bookings jump by 40 to 50 percent in the peak durian months of June and July, driven by visitors from China, Singapore and Indonesia who travel specifically for durians. Hotels now sell orchard tasting packages for RM80 to RM100 per person through direct deals with orchard owners. The orchard fills the hotel. The hotel fills the orchard.

Pahang, where my farm is. In 2025, Pahang drew 11 million domestic tourists, more than any other state, and earned RM9.8 billion in domestic tourism receipts. Highlands, rivers, rainforest and durian towns like Raub and Bentong all pull in families from Kuala Lumpur and Selangor.

The pattern is the same everywhere. When a state ties its identity to what its farmers grow, the farms and the state promote each other for free.

Field-Tested Play: Ride your state's signature crop

Every state has a crop it is proud of. If your farm grows it, say so loudly on your signs, your Google listing and your WhatsApp profile. If you grow something else, pair up with it: a cocoa farm near a durian town can sell "durian in the morning, chocolate in the afternoon." Tour operators love easy combinations.

How Agritourism Helps the Locals

This is the part I care about most, because it is where the money actually lands.

When a bus of visitors pulls into a farm, the farmer is only the first person paid. Those visitors also need someone to drive them, someone to guide them, a homestay or hotel for the night, lunch, a cold drink, a souvenir and fuel for the trip home.

Agritourism ripple effect diagram: visitor spending flows from the farm to the village, the state and the country, and every dollar of farm agritourism sales created 58 cents more for local businesses — The farmer is the first person paid, not the last.

Economists call this the multiplier effect. A Rutgers University study for the New Jersey Department of Agriculture put a number on it: every dollar of agritourism sales on a farm generated another 58 cents of sales in other local businesses, from restaurants to builders to insurers.

You can see it in Balik Pulau, Penang. Wong Durian House began in the 1920s when the owner's grandfather planted 50 durian trees. Today the third-generation owner looks after 150 trees and welcomes visitors from China, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Singapore. One Indonesian visitor told Bernama she and three friends found a Balik Pulau orchard on Facebook and made the trip. A family orchard now earns from tourism as well as fruit, and every visitor also eats, sleeps and shops in the town.

Farm tourism also brings learning to the village. On my own farm, Taylor's University and TAR UMT have each sent a busload of students to learn about durians. School and university groups are such a big part of this story that Malaysia launched a separate education theme, Edu+ 2.0, alongside Taste of Orchard. Groups like these need guides, drivers and cooks, the kind of work young people can do without moving to the city.

Other countries show how deep this can go. In Italy, the national statistics office found that farm stays running educational farms have grown by 220% since 2010, and about 39% of them are run by women. In Taiwan, Chang Ching-lai, known as the godfather of the island's leisure farms, offers free hospitality training to young people so they can return to their home towns and build careers there.

There is a warning in the data too. In Italy, just 382 towns, 7.6% of the total, host 42% of all farm-stay guests. The money flows to places that organise themselves. Villages that wait to be discovered usually stay undiscovered.

Traditional Malay houses of Kampung Morten reflected in the Melaka River, Malaysia, a village where community-based tourism supports local families — Farm tourism money should reach the kampung too. Kampung Morten, Melaka. Photo: Michael Coghlan / Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.

Reality Check: Who else could earn from your visitors?

1. Is there a homestay, guide or driver nearby you could recommend, who could recommend you back?

2. Could a local cook or kuih maker sell food at your farm on busy days?

3. Do your visitors leave with something to buy, made by you or your neighbours?

The International View: What Other Farming Nations Already Know

Malaysia is not inventing this. It is catching up with countries that have built farm tourism for decades. Here is what they show us.

Agritourism around the world: Italy 26,360 agriturismi, Taiwan 36.7 million leisure farm visits, Japan 8.68 million farm stay nights, USA US$1.26 billion agritourism income, Malaysia 66 orchard packages — Malaysia is joining a club of farming nations that already earn big from visitors.

Italy: a farm stay in every hill town

In 2024, Italy had 26,360 agriturismi, farms licensed to host guests, serve meals or offer tastings. They welcomed 4.7 million guests, up 4.3% in a year, and 54.8% of them came from abroad. Tuscany alone holds 22.2% of all agriturismi. Italy turned the farm stay into a national brand that foreigners plan whole holidays around. You can see how one estate near Florence did it in my case study of Fattoria di Maiano.

Misty farmland hills at daybreak in the Crete Senesi, Tuscany, Italy, the region with the most agriturismo farm stays — Tuscany alone holds more than a fifth of Italy's agriturismi. Crete Senesi at daybreak. Photo: Phillip Capper / Flickr, CC BY 2.0.

Taiwan: from one orchard to a national industry

Taiwan's leisure farm movement is usually traced to Shangri-La Leisure Farm in Yilan, listed by the Taiwan Leisure Farms Development Association as the island's first tourist orchard and first leisure farm. The government then backed the idea with designated leisure agriculture areas, 67 of them by one official count.

The growth was remarkable. Leisure farm visits rose from 9.59 million in 2008 to 20 million in 2013, and foreign visitors from 63,700 to 260,000. A later Council of Agriculture survey counted about 36.7 million visits a year and NT$11.2 billion in output.

And here is the twist. Malaysians have been among Taiwan's best customers. Malaysian tour groups were already spending nights at Shangri-La back in 2005, and in 2013 Taiwan's leisure farm association named Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong as its main foreign markets. Malaysians have been paying to holiday on Taiwanese farms for more than twenty years. Now it is our turn to host.

Cow sculpture at the entrance of Flying Cow Ranch, a leisure farm in Miaoli County, Taiwan — Taiwan turned working farms into holiday destinations. Flying Cow Ranch, Miaoli. Photo: Wei-Te Wong / Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.

Japan: farm stays to save the countryside

Japan's farm ministry runs a national farm stay programme, called nouhaku, to bring life back to rural villages. It set a goal of 7 million guest nights by 2025, with 10% from overseas. Farm-stay regions then logged a record 8.68 million guest nights in the year to March 2025. I covered what Japan's new lodging taxes mean for these stays in my article on Nasu's farm-stay lodging tax.

United States: a billion-dollar side income

American farms earned US$1.26 billion from agritourism in 2022, up 12.4% from 2017 after inflation, according to the USDA. About 57% of US counties reported some agritourism income. My full breakdown is in Agritourism Statistics 2026.

The global picture

Nobody agrees on how big the world agritourism market is. One research firm puts it at about US$9 billion in 2025, another at more than US$80 billion, depending on what they count. But every forecast points the same way: up. By one estimate, Europe holds close to half of the market.

The lesson from all four countries is the same. Farm tourism grew fastest where three things came together: government promotion, farmers who organised, and an experience built on what the land already produces. Malaysia now has the first piece. The other two are up to us.

Field-Tested Play: Team up before you are invited

Taiwan grew through leisure agriculture areas, not lone farms. Canada is now mapping farm trails between its cities. This month, talk to two or three farms near you and agree on a simple combined day out. A tour operator would rather book one cluster than five strangers. My article on Canada's Field to Fork farm trail shows why neighbours who team up get paid first.

How to Get Your Farm Into the Next Package

Packages are not handed out at random. Tour operators put them together, working with Tourism Malaysia and state tourism bodies; the durian packages, for example, were sold through 27 local operators. Your job is to make your farm the easiest yes on their list. Here is the six-step plan I would follow.

Six steps to get your farm into a tourism package: make it visitable, build one signature experience, set a trade price, talk to tourism offices, pitch tour operators, be found online and keep every visitor — Print this and pin it by your farm office.

Make your farm safe and visitable. Parking for a bus, clean toilets, shade, drinking water, first aid and a wet-weather plan. A tour operator cannot sell a farm a bus cannot reach.
Build one signature experience. Two to three hours, with a clear story, something to taste, something to do and something to take home. Write it down as a timetable.
Set a trade price. Operators need a margin. Quote them a lower net rate and keep your public walk-in price higher, so both of you earn.
Talk to the people who build packages. Contact your state tourism office and Tourism Malaysia's office in your state. Ask how farms can be included in future rounds and which tour operators handle agrotourism.
Pitch licensed tour operators. Send a one-page fact sheet with photos, group size, prices, opening days and your fruit season calendar.
Be found online and keep every visitor. Packages bring first-time visitors. Google and WhatsApp bring them back.

That last step is the one I have proven on my own farm. Bloopy Durians gets a steady flow of visitors because it ranks at the top of Google search results, and our WhatsApp list of loyal customers buys durians whenever they are in season. A package can introduce you to a visitor once. Your own list lets you serve that visitor for years.

If you farm outside Malaysia, the same steps apply. Find out who builds packages in your country, whether it is a state tourism board, a regional farm trail or a national farm stay network, and make yourself easy to sell. And remember that you don't always need a middleman: a one-acre family bee farm in Vietnam reached No. 1 of 83 things to do on its island without paying commissions, as I showed in my Phu Quoc Bee Farm case study.

Field-Tested Play: Be the farm that answers the phone

Tour operators drop farms that are slow to reply, can't confirm a date or change prices without warning. Reply within a day, put your prices in writing and honour them for the whole season. Reliability is the cheapest advantage in tourism.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Taste of Orchard?

Taste of Orchard is a set of 66 agrotourism packages launched by Tourism Malaysia on 23 September 2026 for Visit Malaysia 2026–2027. They feature durian, Harumanis mango, cocoa, gula apong, empurau and pineapple, with orchard tours, agro-education visits, community-based tourism and farmstays.

How many packages did Tourism Malaysia launch for Visit Malaysia 2026–2027?

118 in total: 29 Edu+ 2.0 education packages, 23 EatVenture food packages and 66 Taste of Orchard agrotourism packages.

How does agritourism help a country's economy?

It spreads tourism spending into rural areas, turns local crops into international brands, encourages longer stays and repeat visits, and keeps small farms profitable. A Rutgers University study in New Jersey found each dollar of farm agritourism sales created about 58 more cents for other local businesses.

Can my farm join a Taste of Orchard package?

Packages are put together by tour operators working with Tourism Malaysia and state tourism bodies. Contact your state tourism office and agrotourism tour operators, and have a safe, priced and bookable experience ready to show them. Package information is published on Tourism Malaysia's official promotional platforms.

Is durian tourism really growing in Malaysia?

Yes. Tourism Malaysia's durian package sales rose from about RM107,000 in 2022 to RM1.6 million in 2023, and Penang reports hotel bookings rising 40 to 50 percent during the peak durian months.

Your Next Step: Make Your Farm the Easy Yes

Malaysia has just told the world its farms are worth visiting. Italy did it decades ago. Taiwan did it orchard by orchard. Japan is doing it to save its villages. Every time, the farms that won were the ones that were ready when the door opened.

So, is your farm ready? That is exactly why I built the Farm Readiness Quiz. In a few minutes it shows you which parts of your farm are ready for visitors and which ones to fix first, so you don't waste money on the wrong thing.

Take the Free Farm Readiness Quiz

Then download my free ebook, the 21-Point Agritourism Blueprint. It walks you through 21 points to check before you welcome your first paying visitor, from safety and signage to pricing, so you open your gate with confidence instead of guesswork.

Download the Free 21-Point Agritourism Blueprint

P.S. Remember the durian packages that sold RM107,000 one year and RM1.6 million the next? The farms in those packages did not grow better durians overnight. They were simply ready when the buses came. The next round is coming. Take the free quiz now and find out what to fix before it does.

Written by Stephen Loke of AgritourismSuccess.com, whose farm is featured in Bloomberg News and Asahi Shimbun. This article is for education only and is not legal, financial or investment advice. Figures were checked in October 2026 and may change, and package details are set by Tourism Malaysia and its tour operator partners. Photos marked illustrative do not show the farms named; all photos are from Flickr under Creative Commons licences.