KUCHING: It is necessary Padawan Municipal Council and the event management company to conduct a postmortem on the relatively poor response to this year’s Padawan Raft Safari, said chairman of the council Lo Khere Chiang yesterday.
According to him, the poorer response could be due to the reduced amount of cash prizes offered to the winners as well as the reduced number of categories to be competed.
Other reasons could be the lack of publicity and promotions as well as the not so interesting side activities.
“From the post mortem, we will try our best to improve the next safari,” said Lo, who is Batu Kitang assemblyman.
This year’s event attracted the lowest participation with only 24 rafts and nine kayaks compared to more than 100 rafts and kayaks in the earlier editions.
There were also no foreign participants this year. The public turnouts at the starting and finishing points were also low.
Nevertheless, Lo pointed out that the event had achieved its objective of getting the local communities involved.
“The poorer response is not a big issue because the most important thing is the local people were taking part in the merry-making and enjoying themselves,” he said.
Lo added, MPP would look into improving the infrastructure at Kampung Git, like widening the road to the village and extending the space for the food and drink stalls.
Kampung Git headman Kidat Paon said the number of participants in the rafting and kayaking competitions had dropped drastically.
He also said fewer people came to his village (Kampung Git), the finishing point and venue for the prize giving ceremony since last year.
Besides that, the food and drink stalls operating during the event had also dropped.
To attract more public, Kidat took the initiative to invite the Padawan 4×4 Adventure Club to put up an extreme 4×4 show at the village. This turned out to be the main attraction this year.
The Padawan Raft Safari, formerly known as Sarawak Kiri River Rafting was first organised by a group of local villagers together with DBNA Penrissen Branch in 2000 but MPP took over in 2004.
