KUCHING: The state’s national parks and nature reserves are among the places most frequently visited by tourists from mainland China.
The most notable ones are Bako National Park about 37km from here and Semenggoh Nature Reserve at Km19 Jalan Puncak Borneo.
Bako National Park in the northern tip of Muara Tebas Peninsula was established in 1957 and is the state’s oldest national park.
Other favourite places are the world-renowned Mulu Caves and Niah National Parks.
Tourism, Arts, Culture, Youth and Sports Minister Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah (pic), dislosed this in an interview with the New Sarawak Tribune.
“We used to hear that tourists from mainland China love shopping everywhere they go in the world. This is not a surprise. After all, Chinese travellers are said to be the world’s biggest spenders.
“But surprisingly many among tourists from mainland China have a different liking when they come to Sarawak. Here they love to visit our parks and nature reserves,” he said.
With the recent aggressive promotion of Sarawak’s tourism in mainland China, the minister said his ministry was expecting a big jump in the number of tourist arrivals starting from this year.
In view of this, he said his ministry in collaboration with Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UiTM) and Sarawak Forestry recently organised training for Mandarin-speaking park guides.
Some 40 selected park guides attended the training. The guides are linked to tour agencies, so once they had completed the training they would be directly employed by the agencies.
Karim said the guides needed to undergo specialised training because only trained guides are allowed to do guiding in parks. – ADEN NAGRACE
