KUCHING: Sarawak’s tourism sector is steadily picking up.
It recorded an increase in tourists arrivals of 319,064 last month, compared to 72,331 for the corresponding period last year.
Minister of Tourism, Creative Industry, and Performing Arts Datuk Seri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah said this saw a growth of visitor arrivals by 453.62 per cent, and with tourism receipts totalling RM809.37 million.
“Out of the total 319,064 tourists for the period of January, 172,983 were foreigners and 146,081 domestic arrivals.
“For the same corresponding period last year, the number of foreign tourist arrivals were 3,468 while 68,863 were domestic arrivals – a growth of 4887.98 per cent and 112.13 respectively,” he said.
He released the figures at a press conference after the launching of the Borneo International Garden Expo Sarawak (BIGEXS) 2023 at the Borneo Convention Centre Kuching today (Feb 21).
In terms of tourism earnings, Abdul Karim said the state also saw an increase of 396.88 per cent with RM809.37 million in tourism receipts last month, compared to RM162.89 million for the corresponding period.
“Meanwhile, the top five tourists arrivals for the month of January are from Brunei (104,653), followed by Indonesia (44,090), Philippines (2,975), Singapore (4,703) and China (1,900),” he said.
With this increase in tourist arrivals for the first month of this year, he described it as a good indicator for the state’s tourism sector.
“Actually, this went beyond our expectations which is about the average tourist arrival of 250,000.
“Also, looking at the events we are introducing, I am quite confident that Sarawak will be able to achieve our target of 3 million in visitor arrivals this year,” he said.
“We were badly hit by the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, but now we are climbing back and hopefully we would be able to hit 5 million in visitor arrivals in the years to come, as we have hit the figure of 4.6 million before the pandemic,” he said.
Asked what contributed to the significant increase for January this year, Abdul Karim said it was because of what Sarawak had to offer.
“Sarawak is a very safe place, there are many beautiful things that we have down here which are always related to biodiversity and environment.
“That is the reason why I believe people are beginning to know more about Sarawak and also the events that we are organising,” he said.
In an effort to bring in more tourists, he said the Sarawak Tourism Board (STB) is also working hard to get more direct flights to the state instead of having to transit in Kuala Lumpur.
