The 56 national parks, comprising nature reserves and wildlife sanctuaries remain the most preferred destinations for eco- tourists both domestic and foreign because of their wildlife attractions, interesting nature activity and beautiful and unique landscape.
The total arrivals of visitors to all the national parks were 186,486 with total revenues generated amounting to RM2.18 million as of May 2018. The total visitor arrivals consist of 136,573 domestic (73%) and 49,913 foreigners (27%).
There is an encouraging increase of 18.33% of foreign visitors with an overall increase of revenue by 0.88% as compared to the same period last year. National parks that recorded the highest number of visitors as of May 2018 are Semenggoh Wildlife Centre (28,572 visitors), Bako National Park (10,358 visitors), Santubong National Park (9,367 visitors), Niah National Park (8,636 visitors), Gunung Mulu National Park (7,781 visitors) and Lambir Hills National Park (4,485 visitors). Lambir Hill National Park was awarded the TripAdvisor 2018 Certificate of Excellence for best attraction, cafeteria and information for the second time actually. This award would be leverage as a promotional and branding mileage for national parks.
The Matang Wildlife Centre won the 2017 Sarawak Chief Minister’s Award for the Best Managed Park and best practices in management, protection and conservation.
The Minister of Tour ism, Arts, culture, Youth and Sports, Datuk Haji Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah, in his winding speech during the debate on the Opening speech of the Yang di Pertua Negeri during the recent sitting of the State Legislative Assembly, said his Ministry in collaboration with other agencies and tourism industry players has successfully organized many tourism events to attract more tourists, generate economic spin off for the local community and to capture international media attention.
He said the signature event being the Rainforest World Music Festival or RWMF, which this year being its 21st edition, has successfully introduced new activities including the wellness programs such as Yoga, Taichi, Zumba and talks on health and wellness.
There were also pocket of performances to create a more vibrant festivity ambience. The STB brought in 200 media comprising printed and online media and influential bloggers from around the world to cover the festival. Datuk Haj i Abdul Kar im Sarawak will host the Miss World Malaysia contest next month (September) and, for the first t ime, Borneo Fashion Week and Kuching Waterfront Jazz Festival during the month. The Kuching Waterfront Festival, which comprises International Dragon Boat Regatta, will be held in October and Sarawak Regatta in November.
He says Sarawak is leveraging on its membership in several regional cooperation platforms namely the Brunei-Indonesia- Malaysia-Philippines East Asia Growth Area (BIMPEAGA) , East Asia Inter – Regional Tourism Forum (EATOF), Social Economic Malaysia- Indonesia (SOSEK MALINDO) , Sabah- Sarawak-Labuan Joint Tourism Coordination and Collaboration Commi t tee (SSLJTCC) , and Sarawak- Brunei Bilateral Cooperation Tourism Working Group, to develop joint activities, marketing and promotion of tourism in the region.
He says Sarawak Tour ism Board (STB) continues to be at the forefront in marketing and promotion of tourism in the State.
The Board, in sustaining the market interest with its activities, for the first half of 2018 saw the sustained direct flights into Sarawak. Datuk Haji Abdul Karim said the State Government would embark on a Visit Sarawak Campaign with the objective to position Sarawak as the preferred tourist destination.
The campaign will include branding exercise to enhance the image of Sarawak as an attractive destination for holiday, business and investment. The STB is entrusted to undertake the Visit Sarawak Campaign, which will highlight the offerings on new tourism products that will be appealing to the trend of travelling and well targeted at specific interest groups.
The private sectors should be ready with their offerings and be fully prepared in delivering excellent services with sufficient resources to meet the needs of the tourists. In this connection, a series of public engagement program would be organized among local Sarawakians to indicate a strong sense of belonging on the campaign so that they would help to promote their very own homeland to the world. Ultimately, the outcome of the campaign is to increase tourist arrivals by 15% – 18% and to increase their average length of stay from 5 days to a week and subsequently increase tourism revenue earnings for the State.
Besides, STB will focus on markets for family and silver-hair and will diversify markets interest to meet trends moving fast from the traditional packages to free and independent travelling. This trend is popular among the younger generation facilitated by the rise of Low Cost carriers and online accommodation and travel booking.
Datuk Haji Abdul Karim said STB has been working effectively in collaboration with the regional Low Cost carriers such as Air Asia, Scoots, Wings Air and Malindo Air. It has been working closely with Air Asia to tap into the China’s free independent travellers through its direct flights from Shenzhen to Kuching. In addition, Scoots has direct flight from Singapore to Kuching and Wings Air has direct flight from Pontianak to Kuching and Miri.
An Integrated Marketing Campaign has been launched to target to the younger travellers from these airport hubs. STB works effectively by collaborating with strategic partners in all the target markets including airlines, tour operators, online portals and other interested partners.
Datuk Haji Abdul Karim said the collaborative efforts, for the first half of 2018, centered on partners working on focus markets of domestic that is West Malaysia, Singapore, China, Germany and Australia. STB, ongoing marketing collaboration with Air Asia, has been given emphasis with a two-prong strategy to increase arrival from China especially from the southern region and to ensure sustainability of the direct flight.
He said the collaboration has also been emphasizing on digital promotion with investment on media content generation using key opinion leaders (KOL), celebrities and writers to fulfil STB’s digital promotion in the market place. Engagement sessions with Tourism Malaysia Guangzhou, tour ism wholesalers, agents and Air Asia China was held in Shenzhen and Guangzhou recently to gather feedbacks and suggestions to chart the way forward for the marketing strategies in China. Currently, Air Asia Kuching– Shenzhen–Kuching direct flight, three times weekly, has the consistent load at 79 percent.
The ratio of passenger flown based on nationality splits at 60:40 between Malaysians and China nationals. Datuk Haji Abdul Karim said two joint tactical marketing promotions have been scheduled in 2018 with two (2) top German agents, Tischler Risen and derTouristik. The initiatives arise from the State’s participation at the March International Tourismus Bourse (ITB) Berlin.
The joint collaboration with Tour ism Malaysia Frankfur t office saw joint promotion of the destination through media familiarization trips in last April.
He said the State’s joint collaboration with Sabah Tourism in the promotion of Borneo as a single destination, where Mulu was given much emphasis with package extension from Kota Kinabalu, recently completed road show from 20th – 30th May 2018 covering Sydney, Melbourne and Perth for the Australian market The Business-to-Business (B2B) session was leveraged upon to introduce Kuching as extension package from Mulu.
The Sydney and Perth session was a joint marketing collaboration with Malaysia Airlines while the Melbourne sector was an effort with Royal Brunei Airlines which flies three (3) times weekly from Melbourne to the hub of Bandar Seri Begawan with stop over packages to Mulu and Kota Kinabalu. He said it is crucial for STB, though it is not fully empowered to manage and develop tourism products, to provide feedback and inputs to ground handlers on the type of packages and products to be featured in the marketplace.
It is the target of STB to produce at least 10 new packages for the focus market each year. There are seven (7) new potential Sarawak packages, which are ready to be sold by ground handlers. Among them are Mulu Nat ional Park Beyond Caves Packages, Kapit-Baleh Expedition, Padawan Discovery, Rajang Belawai Discovery , Mukah, Rentap Heritage Trails in Betong, Discover Serian Trail and Limbang – Lawas & Meritam Pasir Lumpur Bebuak packages.
Datuk Haji Abdul Karim said his Ministry has been having many formal and informal engagement sessions with Sarawak Tourism Federation (STF) and its affiliates including Malaysian Association of Travel and tour Agents (MATTA) , Malaysian Hotel Association (MHA) and Association of Sarawak Inbound Agencies (ASIA).
The Ministry has also held engag ement s e s s ions wi t h Sarawak Restaurant Association (SRA), Sarawak Association of Tour ism Attractions (SATA), Sarawak Handicraft and Souvenir Association (SHASA) and Sarawak Tour Guide Association (SkTGA) in the efforts to understand better the need and challenges being faced by Industry players, Datuk Haji Abdul Karim said Sarawak Convention Bureau brought in 89 Business Events, 60 Bid Wins and 29 Bids Supported to Sarawak last year.
The 89 Business Events represent close to 34,000 delegates and 97,000 delegate days, translating to approximately RM107 million indirect delegates expenditure to Sarawak. Thi s re v enue re turns t o Sarawak to feed downstream and upstream tourism businesses in sustaining flight demands, accommodation, event venues, food & beverage outlets, and others. Equally important is the yield in Business Events in branding profile reputation, knowledge alliances, trade and investment, dignity and social development and legacy.
The top four (4) high profile Business Events secured out of the 60 Wins are World Autism Congress 2022 with targeted 1,500 delegates, Hope Conference 2018 with targeted also 1,500 delegates, Congress of the Federation of Asian Veterinary Association 2020 with targeted 800 delegates and 10th Clean Air Asia Better Air Quality Conference 2018 with targeted 600 delegates.
Another 50 additional business events were won to develop Sarawak in agriculture, medical, education, environment and biodiversity, science, technology and engineering, and sectors, which are in line with the State’s vision and direction. Datuk Haji Abdul Karim said Sarawak Convention Bureau (SCB) would host business events Tribal Meet or commonly known as TriBE 2018) from August 23 and 24, 2018 in Kuching.
TriBE 2018 will gather over 200 prequalified decision makers for a series of keynote sessions by global thought leaders, a panel discussion featuring four prominent business events bodies and the 9th Anak Sarawak Awards to acknowledge the contributions of stakeholders to the State. He s a id Tr iBE 2 0 1 8 wi l l launch the BESarawak Alliance to drive stronger network with Government ministries and agencies to cultivate business matching, impact growth opportunities and yield beyond the immediate economic impact, as well as to understand the benefits from participation with international associations.
Datuk Haji Abdul Karim said SCB, in driving service excellence within the industry, would pilot accreditation programs with global authorities such as the International Association of Professional Congress Organizers (IAPCO) in generating referred and referral businesses.
He said the State Government, acknowledging the important contribution of the tourism sector to the economy through the Socio- Economic Transformation Program, has approved 15 Key Result Areas (KRAs) projects and programs this year worth RM 59.16 million. Seven out of the 15 projects and programs are phys ical projects and eight (8), programs. A total of about RM14 million has been spent in 2017 while the balance will be utilized in 2018 and 2019.
He said the on-going physical projects include the upgrading of Tourism Infrastructure and Facilities at Wind Cave, Fairy Cave in Bau, Kuching Waterfront areas and Kuching Heritage Trail, upgrading work to the Jetty near Santubong Bridge to cater for the RAMSAR site (Kuching Wetland) visitors, anglers and divers and the construction of the walkway in front of the DUN building to connect the pedestrian bridge with Fort Margherita. He said related studies are being conducted in developing tourism products, which include the conversion of the Brooke Dockyard into a Maritime Museum, the conversion of Old DUN building into a Performing Arts Centre, the construction of a Gold Mine Museum and Park in Bau and the transformation of the Old Miri Resident Office into a Cultural and Heritage Centre.
Datuk Haj i Abdul Kar im said the recent decision of the Federal Government to review new projects that have not been awarded resulted in five (5) tourism related projects under the Second Rolling Plan of the 11MP, amounting to RM30,884,000, are being put on hold, namely the Development of Eco – Tourism for Kuching Wetland National Park, Baram Waterfront, Belaga Waterfront, the Upgrading of Panchor Hotspring in Serian and Upgrading of Tourism Facilities at Gunung Serumbu Bau. His Ministry has written to the Federal Ministry to reconsider their decision on this matter as the projects have gone through meticulous planning and are considered growth catalysts for the tourism sector.
Hopefully the new Ministers from Pakatan Harapan from Sarawak can help when they sit in the Federal Cabinet.
Datuk Haji Abdul Karim said the bigger and more imposing five-storey building, of the two main buildings under construction, is the new Sarawak Museum Campus, which will become an iconic landmark by mid-2020. It will provide about 6,500sq meters of exhibition space to showcase Borneo’s rich history spanning more than 42,000 years. Once completed, Sarawak Museum Campus will rank the second largest museum after the National Galley in Singapore in the region.
The permanent narrative uses interesting themes to link together a variety of collections, photographs, footage and stories into a cohesive and interactive experience. The exhibition will be carefully planned to cater to a broad range of audience ranging from the young to the old.
It is expected to reap economic benefits from increased cultural tourism. He said the other building is a four-storey Administrative-cum- Conservation centre, which will have the state of the art conservation and laboratory facilities, that will ensure that the state’s impressive collection will be better preserved and documented for posterity.
The centre will also serve as a resource and research centre in its quest to achieve the vision of becoming the ‘Global Centre for Bornean Heritage by 2030’. It is also envisaged that with more storage space, the museum can renew its acquisition program to ensure that more of the state’s heritage can be safeguarded and protected.
He said the physical construction of the two buildings is progressing well at about 75% and will be opened to the public as scheduled in early 2020. The Original Museum Building, built in 1891, is the pride of Sarawak.
It was closed last year to enable it to be conserved and restored to showcase the building and exhibits as an example of late 19th century to early 20th century musicology. He said the ethnographi c objects, formerly on display on the top floor have been treated, packed and transported for temporary storage at the Repository of the State Library. The ground floor, expected to be reopened in early 2020, will be used for original exhibition of Natural History Collection plus the Charles Hose Ethnographic Collection and Interactive displays on level 1.
He said several partnerships and signing of Memorandum of Understanding with renowned institutions have been made with the British Museum, Natural History Museum, London and Reinwardt Academy Amsterdam to ensure Sarawak Museum Campus project will attain global standard. Among matters that have been agreed include educational and cultural exchange through internship and attachment of staff and collaboration on temporary loan of collection for exhibitions.
The Natural History Museum also assist in making Peer Review to ensure that the planning and implementation of the project will conform with standard procedures such as functionality and general best practices and appropriate facilities for conservation and storage areas and security measures. Datuk Haji Abdul Karim said five (5) forts or kubu, namely Kubu Lili, Betong; Kubu Emma, Kanowit ; Kubu Hose, Marudi; Kubu Brooke, Julau and Kubu Sylvia, Kapit would be conserved and maintained under the current Malaysia Plan.
Old forts are reminiscence of historical past and is an important part of the state’s heritage and need to be preserved and maintained He said the forts at Betong and Kanowit would be converted into regional museums to display local history, culture and crafts while the existing galleries at Kapit and Marudi will be enhanced. Kubu Brooke would be used as a Rural Community centre, which includes a rural library.
All works on the forts are expected to be completed by mid-2020. Sarawak Museum, in April 2018, received a total of 412 Borneon cultural artefacts or Nusantara Col lect ion f rom Museum Prinsenhof Delft, Leiden in Netherlands. A selection of the said Nusantara collection was put on display at the Sarawak Textile Museum from the 16th May 2018 for a period of six (6) months. It has attracted more than 5,000 visitors since its opening to the public last May.
Sarawak Museum will host the 8th ASEMUS Conference, which will gather 250 cultural experts from across Asia and Europe including museum directors, curators, educators, artists and scholars and representatives of UNESCO and International Council of Museums (ICOM). They will be invited as speakers on regional & city museums as well as accessibility issues from 14th to 18th November 2018 in Kuching.
Sarawak received 4.85 million visitors, bringing in an estimated tourists receipt of RM8.59 billion in 2017. The visitor arrivals figure was 1,750,640 from January to May this year. The figures indicate a positive increase in the tourist arrival especially from China and Singapore.
A total of RM439,731 was collected for the period between September 2017 to December 2017 with the implementation of tourism tax where Sarawak Government will be given 50% of every RM10 in tax per room per night collected from foreign tourists. The State Ministry of Tourism, Arts, culture, Youth and Sports is working closely with the Federal Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture to determine how they can channel the allocations to the State so that they can be utilized for the implementation of tourism related programs and initiatives.
The Ministry, in response to the call to capitalize on digital economy to boost Sarawak’s tourism competitiveness, has initiated to embrace and redevelop its tourism web portal with enhanced and interactive contents.
The exercise would include developing Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality technology for tourism hotspots starting with the Old Kuching Heritage area in time for Visit Sarawak Campaign. A total allocation of RM12.5 million has been allocated to the Ministry for the next three years to boost and transform Sarawak’s tourism landscape by leveraging on emerging digital technology.
The State Ministry of Tourism, Arts, culture, Youth and Sports, in collaboration with Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture Malays ia, Sarawak Forestry Corporation, University Malaysia Sarawak and Sarawak Tourist Guide Association, will organize the community participation in the tourism industry, which aims to equip the industry players with the necessary hospitality skills, creativity skills and social media marketing.
The Minist r y is ini t iat ing Mandarin Speaking Park-Guide Training Course in collaboration with Sarawak Forestr y Corporat ion and Universiti Teknologi Mara Sarawak (UiTM) with the aim to increase the number of Mandarin speaking park guides in view of the growing China Tourists Arrival and shortage of Mandarin speaking park guides.
In line with state’s digital agenda, the Ministry is targeting homestay operators to utilize social media marketing in promoting their homestay. Therefore, my Ministry is introducing new program called “Promotion Through Digital Media for Homestay Operators”.
As of June 2018, Minist r y of Tourism, Arts and Culture Malaysia has licensed 275 tour agencies, 140 tourist guides, 171 tourist buses and car rentals and one tourism training institute. In addition, the Ministry has also licensed 215 hotels in Sarawak to ensure that the premises adhere to the guidelines established by the Government.
