KUCHING: Sarawak recorded tourist arrivals totalling 1,117,843 from January to March this year compared to 1,075,560 for the same period last year.
This is an increase of 3.93 per cent over the corresponding period last year.
Tourism, Arts, Culture, Youth and Sports Minister Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah said the top five origins of visitors were Brunei Darussalam (304,823 visitors, an 8.92 per cent decrease), Indonesia (94,303 – 11.45 per cent), the Philippines (14,419 – 2.60 per cent), China (9,983 – 22.62 per cent) and Singapore (9,024 –19.82 per cent).
“With the launch of the Visit Sarawak Campaign, my ministry expects a continuous increase in visitor arrivals, especially during the mid-year peak season,” he said when delivering his ministry’s winding-up speech in DUN sitting today.
He said the state targeted five-million visitor arrivals and RM8.18 billion in tourism revenue this year.
Last year, Sarawak received 4.43 million visitors, with an estimated revenue of RM7.95 billion.
“There is an encouraging increase of 15.24 per cent last year of visitors from China compared to the same period in 2017. For Singaporean tourists, there was an increase of 3.69 per cent in 2018.”
Abdul Karim said in the first quarter of this year, his ministry had carried out initiatives to draw more tourists from China.
“From the working visit and collaboration with China, the Yunnan Cultural Troop has confirmed its participation in the Borneo Cultural Festival in Sibu in July.
“And Nanning City of Guangxi Province and Miri City have started to work on friendship city relationship for tourism cooperation and collaboration,” he said.
He said in the medical tourism sector, Sarawak recorded 48,900 visitors here for health screening and medical treatments, bringing in revenue totalling RM67.10 million last year.
“Majority of the healthcare visitors were from Pontianak and Jakarta, Indonesia with a total number of 41,000 last year.”
He said Sarawak was expected to have more foreign healthcare visitors with its newly-launched private hospitals such as Borneo Medical Centre, KPJ Specialist Hospital and Miri Specialist Hospital.
A total of 33,613 tourists visited homestays in Sarawak last year, bringing in revenue amounting to RM4,348,488.81.
“The homestay programmes will be further enhanced in terms of capacity building such as cultural and handicraft workshops, promotion through digital media programmes for homestay operators and tourism awareness programmes.”
There are 43 registered homestays with 606 operators throughout the state, and this year, two new ones have been registered – Homestay Kedaya Telang Usan in Baram and Homestay Pusa in Betong.
Abdul Karim said for 2019, Tourism Malaysia had revised its target of tourist arrivals from 34.5 million to 28 million, with revenue from RM151 billion to RM92.2 billion.
“In 2018, Malaysia received 25.83 million tourists, a decrease of 0.46 per cent and generated an estimated RM84.1 billion.
“In our efforts to continue attracting more tourists to Sarawak, my ministry will continue to collaborate with other agencies and tourism industry players to organise more tourism events to generate income,” added the minister.
