Grab Malaysia Puts Tech, Talent and Everyday Heroes Behind Visit Malaysia 2026’s Culinary Push

TLDR

• Three-Pronged Push: Grab Malaysia is supporting Visit Malaysia 2026 with the 5-Star Eats food guide, Rakan Grab Jelajah Malaysia content series, and the Visit Malaysia 2026 Travel Pass.
• 5-Star Eats: An in-app food guide endorsed by Tourism Malaysia that turns millions of customer reviews into a curated guide to Malaysian eateries.
• Rakan Grab Jelajah Malaysia: Three-part content series with Shahril Hamdan (KS Lagi) and ASEAN driver-partners exploring KL, Terengganu, and Sabah. Drops 24 June.
• Sofyank Partnership: Malaysian creator brings Malaysia’s culture and beauty across KL, Penang, Sabah, and Sarawak. Drops 22 June.
• Practical Hook: Travellers can use the Visit Malaysia 2026 Travel Pass on Grab to navigate the country with mobility, food delivery, and digital services in one app.

Grab Steps Up as Visit Malaysia 2026’s Tech Backbone

Visit Malaysia 2026 is shaping up to be one of the most ambitious tourism campaigns Malaysia has ever run, and Grab Malaysia has just announced its role in the broader push: turning the super-app into a culinary and travel companion that helps visitors experience the country in a way that feels local, accessible, and uniquely Malaysian.

The strategy runs through three coordinated programmes — each tackling a different piece of the visitor experience. The first, 5-Star Eats, transforms millions of authentic customer ratings and reviews into a curated in-app food guide, giving travellers a trusted shortcut to Malaysia’s best local eateries. The second, Rakan Grab Jelajah Malaysia, is a three-part content series produced with Shahril Hamdan of KS Lagi, putting Grab driver- and delivery-partners from Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia in front of the camera as they explore KL, Terengganu, and Sabah. The third, the Visit Malaysia 2026 Travel Pass, gives international travellers a unified way to move around the country via Grab’s mobility and food-delivery ecosystem.

It’s a coherent package: discover (5-Star Eats), experience (Rakan Grab Jelajah), navigate (Travel Pass). For a tourism campaign that needs to convert curiosity into actual on-the-ground visits, that’s exactly the structure that works.

Turning Millions of Reviews Into a National Food Guide

The 5-Star Eats food guide, officially launched by Grab in partnership with Tourism Malaysia earlier this year, is the centrepiece of the announcement. The concept is straightforward: the average Grab user is constantly rating, reviewing, and re-ordering from local merchants. 5-Star Eats aggregates that trust signal into a discoverable, endorsed in-app guide that helps travellers find the country’s highest-rated eateries without needing a guidebook, a TikTok scroll, or a friend’s recommendation.

For Tourism Malaysia, the partnership is strategically important. The agency’s research shows that 87% of modern tourists choose destinations based on local cuisine, and gastrotourism is now one of the explicit pillars of the VM2026 campaign. By embedding an officially endorsed food guide inside the country’s most-used super-app, Tourism Malaysia gets immediate reach to millions of travellers without building its own platform.

The inaugural merchant roster also sends a message. 5-Star Eats features Village Park Restaurant (Petaling Jaya) — arguably Malaysia’s most famous nasi lemak spot — alongside Hameediyah Restaurant (Kuala Lumpur), Restoran Mat Binjai (Kuala Terengganu), Borenos Fried Chicken and A1 Chicken Rice (Kota Kinabalu). That’s a deliberate regional spread: Klang Valley classics, East Coast staples, and Sabah favourites, all in one launch list. For Grab, it’s a way to position itself not as a generic delivery app, but as the front door to Malaysian food heritage.

Rakan Grab Jelajah Malaysia: Driver-Partners as the Real Ambassadors

The Rakan Grab Jelajah Malaysia series is the more distinctive part of the announcement. It builds on the success of Rakan Grab Jelajah ASEAN, which ran in 2025 and saw three Malaysian Grab partners travel across Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam with host Shahril Hamdan. The new Malaysia edition flips the camera: ASEAN driver-partners visit Malaysia instead.

The three-part series takes those ASEAN partners through KL, Terengganu, and Sabah — three regions that collectively showcase Malaysia’s diversity. KL delivers the urban, multicultural experience. Terengganu offers the East Coast coastal and cultural heritage. Sabah brings the indigenous, nature-driven dimension. Each episode is built around the proposition that Grab driver- and delivery-partners — not celebrity hosts or paid influencers — are the people who actually know a community best. Putting them in front of the camera is a deliberate inversion of the usual tourism-content hierarchy.

The first new episodes drop on 24 June 2026 via @grabmy on Instagram and TikTok.

Complementing the Shahril series, Grab has also partnered with Malaysian creator Sofyank — known for content across architecture, urbanism, and Malaysian culture — to produce his own take on the country across KL, Penang, Sabah, and Sarawak. Sofyank’s content drops 22 June 2026.

The Travel Pass and the Practical Stack

Underpinning both content initiatives is the Visit Malaysia 2026 Travel Pass, designed to give international visitors a single, app-based way to navigate the country. Through Grab, travellers get access to mobility (GrabCar, JustGrab), food delivery (GrabFood), and a curated set of digital services — all under one login and one payment rail.

For visitors, the practical benefit is obvious: no need to install half a dozen apps or carry cash across regions. For Tourism Malaysia, the integration makes the country’s tourism experience more legible to international audiences who are already familiar with super-apps from their home markets.

The framing from Grab Malaysia’s Senior Director Rashid Shukor captures the strategy cleanly: “Whether it’s discovering a memorable meal, exploring a cultural landmark or planning a journey across the country, Grab can help make that experience more seamless while celebrating the people and businesses that make Malaysia unique.”

Why This Matters Beyond the Campaign

There’s a deeper read here. Grab is positioning itself not just as a sponsor of Visit Malaysia 2026, but as the operational layer underneath it. The 5-Star Eats guide means Grab becomes the default food discovery tool for tourists. Rakan Grab Jelajah Malaysia positions Grab driver-partners as cultural ambassadors — elevating a workforce that’s often invisible into the starring role. The Travel Pass makes Grab the practical backbone of getting around.

For Tourism Malaysia, that’s a multi-year win: instead of building and maintaining its own tourism-tech stack, it gets to ride on top of an app Malaysians already use dozens of times a week.

For Malaysian merchants — particularly the small, family-run eateries featured on 5-Star Eats — the exposure to international visitors could be transformative. Village Park’s nasi lemak queue is already legendary, but having it endorsed by an official, app-embedded guide gives the entire category a credibility boost.

Our Take

Grab’s Visit Malaysia 2026 push is the cleanest example yet of a super-app being used as a national tourism engine. The pieces all fit together: discover Malaysian food via 5-Star Eats, see Malaysia through the eyes of locals via Rakan Grab Jelajah, and move around the country via the Travel Pass. It’s not just sponsorship — it’s integration.

The most interesting choice is Rakan Grab Jelajah. Most tourism content uses paid hosts or influencers as the on-screen talent. By putting driver- and delivery-partners in front of the camera, Grab is making a quiet statement about whose knowledge actually counts in a destination. For a campaign whose entire pitch is “experience Malaysia like a local,” that’s the only credible casting.

For Malaysian readers, the practical takeaway is clear. If you’re planning a VM2026 itinerary, the 5-Star Eats guide is now the easiest way to find the country’s most-loved restaurants. If you’re in KL on or after 24 June, watch Rakan Grab Jelajah Malaysia on Instagram or TikTok for a fresh take on the city. And if you want to support the local food scene directly, ordering through Grab from any of the featured 5-Star Eats merchants is a small way to put your money into the businesses that make Malaysian food what it is.