Sarawak targets five million visitors arrival this year with expected RM8.98 million in receipts

KUCHING: Sarawak targets five million visitors arrival this year with an expected RM8.98 million in tourism receipts.
State Tourism, Arts, Culture , Youth and Sports Minister Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah said, as of January to April this year, Sarawak received 2.67 million visitors, indicating an increase of 17.26% as compared to the same period last year.
Speaking at the 18th state Legislative Assembly Sitting here today, he said last year Sarawak managed to receive 4.66 million visitors bringing in an estimated RM8.37 million in tourist receipts.
He said there was, however, a need to create a brand identity for the state as it was not known overseas compared to Kuala Lumpur, Sabah, Penang, Langkawi and Malacca.
He said this was based on feedback from foreigners during the state's numerous trade and travel shows abroad.
"The state government has agreed to engage a brand specialist to look into this matter," he said, adding that it too had placed tourism as one of the three Key Result Areas (KRAS) under its Socio-Economic Transformation Programme (SETP).
Elaborating, Abdul Karim the plan under KRA include, the upgrading of tourism infrastructure and facilties, developing of new products, facelifting and upgrading work of the Kuching Waterfront and creating fringe events for several iconic events such as the Asean International Film Festival and Awards (AIFFA) and Rainforest World Music Festival.
He said there was also a need to provide incentives to interested airline companies to fly direct to Sarawak, either on chartered or scheduled flights.
On medical tourism which is also a very important segment, he said, new private hospitals were being built to add to existing ones which augured very well for it.
He said last year Sarawak received 21,603 foreign patients, mainly Indonesians who spent an estimated RM27.36 million
Meanwhile, he said, his ministry would propose to the state government to build a deep sea port either here or Bintulu with dedicated cruise facilities to meet the needs of mega cruise ships in order to tap into
the fast growing cruise tourism.
"In 2016, Sarawak received 3,671 cruise passengers with seven cruise ships arrival. For this year we expected to receive a total of six ships arrival with about 2,000 passengers," he added. — Bernama