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Why Malaysia’s tourism boom lives and dies on a Chinese app

Why Malaysia’s tourism boom lives and dies on a Chinese app
South China Morning Post Sunday 28 June 2026, 00:00 UTC By Iman Muttaqin Yusof 1 min read
Key Points

Stand on the pedestrian crossing outside McDonald’s in Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur, and you will understand something about how travel works in the 21st century. To the office workers and taxi drivers streaming past, it is just another junction in Malaysia’s biggest city. Yet Chinese tourists will often stop at the side of the intersection, phones raised, capturing a sight only RedNote taught them to see.

Stand on the pedestrian crossing outside McDonald’s in Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur, and you will understand something about how travel works in the 21st century. To the office workers and taxi drivers streaming past, it is just another junction in Malaysia’s biggest city. Yet Chinese tourists will often stop at the side of the intersection, phones raised, capturing a sight only RedNote taught them to see. This is the new geography of Malaysian tourism: shaped less by guidebooks or travel agents... [Image text:] RE 5G 26 LERA 10086 6650 o0 fitcheak 2858 AARRS piny
Malaysia (LOCATION) Chinese (ORG) McDonald’s (ORG) Bukit Bintang (LOCATION) Kuala Lumpur (LOCATION) Malaysian (ORG)
Originally published by South China Morning Post Read original →

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