MAS may have crippled Sabah tourism

The Sabah government has cautioned that the state tourism industry will face a challenging year due to Malaysia Airlines (MAS) recent decision to cut several flights to and from the state.

“The rationalization will especially affect the Japanese and Western Australia markets”, said Sabah Minister of Tourism, Culture & Environment Sabah, Masidi Manjun recently.

“There are now no direct flights between Sabah and Japan. As for Australia, STB (Sabah Tourism Board) is working hard with other airlines to continue offering Sabah holiday packages,” he said.

Masidi also maintained that it was premature, in fact short-sightedness for MAS to cancel the KK-Perth route.

“It should have continued to develop the route as there was very strong growth of Australian arrival in Sabah last year, i.e 33.3 percent. I am sure the route would have eventually been very profitable for MAS in a relatively short period of time,” he explained.

He noted that recent news reported strong public opinion against the route cuts into Sabah by Malaysia Airlines affecting direct air access from Australia, Korea and Japan as well as the suspension of Malaysia Airlines low cost carrier, Firefly.

He added that as for this year, Sabah is targeting regional and domestic markets and is working closely with local industry players to improve the quality of its products, as well as packaging attractive holiday offers during low-season.

“We are also looking into collaborating with 3-star hotels to offer affordable holiday packages during non-peak season to achieve the 2012 projection of 2.93 million visitors. This means we have to do better, and be more aggressive.

“We are open to work with other airlines to achieve this target,” he said.

Source - freemalaysiatoday