Sarawak targets 3.6 mln tourist arrivals next year

Sarawak has set a target of 3.6 million tourist arrivals next year from the current 3.2 million this year, said chief executive officer of the Sarawak Tourism Board (STB), Datuk Rashid Khan.

He said the majority of tourists to the state up to October this year are from neighbouring countries such as Singapore, Brunei, Indonesia, China, India, Australia and also from Peninsular Malaysia.

“As we are facing the global economic slowdown, it is good to focus on our own traditional markets as they have known our products,” Rashid told the Borneo Post here yesterday.

To enable the state to achieve its target, he hoped that the country’s major airlines such as MAS and Air Asia will continue to provide the much needed air connectivity to the state.

“The lack of air connectivity to Sarawak will continue to hinder tourists from visiting our state.

“Thus, we hope that major airlines will not be just looking at their profit and loss in providing the services but rather be looking at the bigger picture of enhancing the state’s economic activities especially in terms of tourism related activities,” he said.

He stressed that it was a sad day for the local tourism sector when Firefly decided to stop its operation recently but was glad that MasWing would take over to provide local connectivity.

Rashid also disclosed that the growth in the tourism sector recorded for this year was 16 per cent compared to last year.

But he expected the growth to be similar with the national growth of between three to five per cent next year.

“To make tourists stay longer, we would be focusing more on lifestyle and festival related products which are very much related to convention, adventure and nature (CAN),” he said.

Rashid said one of the goals which STB would really want to focus more on is to ensure that tourists would stay longer in the Rainforest World Music Festival (RWMF).

“We would enhance the product further by creating more side activities so that tourists would stay longer and not just come over for the music festival alone,” said Rashid.

On other smaller products such as the RV Orient Pandaw cruise boat which will cease operation in March next year, he said it would not affect the tourism sector as it is a small and specialised market based in Sibu.

Rashid also hoped that the Bakun Dam Reservoir would provide a totally new adventure to tourists in the near future once the proposed resort and air connectivity there is established.

Recently, the Sarawak Economic Development Corporation (SEDC) has expressed its intention to develop a resort in the Bakun Dam area and Minister of Tourism Datuk Amar Abang Johari Tun Openg has also disclosed that the government would explore the possibly of providing amphibious planes services to the area.

Source - theborneopost