Three decades of community-built tourism have laid the groundwork. Now, for the first time, visitors will have a direct rail route to find us.
By Dato’ Hj. Sahariman bin Hj. Hamdan, President, Malaysia Homestay Association
In 1995, I started with three houses. My house. My mother’s house. My mother-in-law’s. I was a rubber tapper from Kampung Ketam 1 in Kerdau, Temerloh and the idea that guests from Kuala Lumpur, let alone Tokyo or Mumbai, would one day sit at my table and eat ikan patin with my family was not something I had planned for. It was something I built toward, slowly, with no railway and no guarantee that anyone would make the journey.
Thirty Years Without a Railway
What followed was three decades of work that never waited for infrastructure to arrive first. We did not have a train. What we had were communities that chose to open their doors and everything behind those doors: the batik and silverwork of Kelantan, the crystal crafts and keropok lekor of Terengganu, the ikan patin and rainforest trails of Pahang. Culture, culinary traditions, eco-trails and education programmes, built by families who wanted visitors to understand not just how beautiful the East Coast is, but how it is actually lived.
The movement was never only about inbound tourism. Its backbone has always been the Malaysian family on a Cuti-Cuti Malaysia weekend, parents bringing children to see how a village wakes before dawn, how fish are caught, how batik is made by hand. The Malaysia Homestay Association today spans 222 registered villages and more than 8,300 accommodation units across the country. Income that stays in the village. Women running enterprises from their own homes. Young people who found a reason to stay.
I say this not to take credit, but to make a point that development conversations often overlook: our communities did not wait. Operators across Kelantan, Terengganu and Pahang built their businesses, trained their families, and opened their doors before a single rail track crossed their backyard. The problem was never what we had to offer. The problem was that reaching us required a decision most travellers were not willing to make twice.
The Visitors We Could Not Fully Reach
From Kota Bharu in the north to Temerloh in the heart of Pahang, the East Coast is one of Malaysia’s richest tourism corridors — a belt of destinations that offers what no city hotel can replicate. Our most loyal foreign guests, Japanese visitors, who have supported this movement for thirty years made the journey willingly, planning carefully and hiring drivers. The independent traveller on a shorter itinerary did not.
When MHA took our operators to Indonesia through our Homestay Tourism Showcase (HOTAS 2026) across Jakarta, Bogor, Padang, Bukit Tinggi and Pekanbaru in June and July — the interest from travel agents, universities and family groups was immediate. But every serious conversation came back to the same question: how do visitors get from Kuala Lumpur to the kampung?
A New Chapter Opens
Malaysia’s East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) is now in its testing and commissioning phase, with passenger services scheduled to begin in early 2027. A journey from the Klang Valley to Kota Bharu that currently takes seven to eight hours by road will take under four by train. Temerloh, Kuala Terengganu, Dungun, Kota Bharu — destinations that once required a committed road trip will sit within easy reach on a fast, modern network. Twenty stations — five in Selangor, seven in Pahang, six in Terengganu and two in Kelantan, each one a new way in for a visitor who, until now, had no choice but to drive.
For domestic travellers, this changes the calculation entirely. A Cuti-Cuti Malaysia weekend on the East Coast always desirable but never quite convenient becomes as straightforward as a trip to Ipoh. For the Indonesian couple, the Indian family, the student on an exchange programme, the asterisk disappears: the East Coast is no longer a destination that requires a rental car to reach. Malaysia’s homestay villages are not waiting to be discovered. We have been welcoming guests for thirty years. What the railway offers is a wider door.
What We Are Already Building
The homestay industry did not wait for this railway to begin preparing for it. HOTAS 2026 was built around exactly the product categories that rail travel will make more accessible — cultural performances, traditional cuisine, community craft workshops, eco-trails and rural education programmes. We are already developing packages for rail travellers: visitors who step off at a station without a car and need a seamless journey from platform to kampung.
Visit Malaysia 2026 gives us the platform. The railway gives us the reach. What we are building now across 222 villages, from Kota Bharu to Temerloh is the readiness to welcome a new generation of travellers who will, for the first time, be able to find us by train.
Ready for What Comes Next
The numbers I watch most closely are not arrivals logged at international airports. They are the revenue figures from Kelantan, Terengganu and Pahang and the quiet confidence of families along the rail corridor who have been building, for years, toward a moment like this.
We built this industry without a railway. We are ready for what comes with one.
