BY NEVILLE TIMOTHY SANDERS & AWANG MUHAMMAD SYAHMI
KUCHING: From January up to February this year, 328,009 international tourists arrived in Sarawak compared to 6,604 for the same period last year.
Minister of Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts, Datuk Seri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah explained that the tourist arrivals this year increased by 4866.82 per cent.
“Most of the tourists were from Brunei Darrusalam because the country opened its borders since last year,” he said.
He said this during the press conference to announce the upcoming Sarawak’s first IMEX Frankfurt Germany at Baitulmakmur II here today (March 30).
Abdul Karim added over 600,433 tourists came from Europe from January to February 2023.
“From January, over 300,000 European tourists arrived every month.
“Since our target this year is three million foreign tourists, if the average tourist arrivals from Europe are 300,000 per month, in the next 10 months, we will achieve that target as well,” he said.
Abdul Karim believed that Sarawak could attract more than three million tourists due to the number of events organised from the beginning of July until September this year.
“At the matter of fact, I hope hotels in Kuching can cope up with the arrivals of tourists to Sarawak later, especially during the months I mentioned just now,” he added.
