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24th December, 2007
KOTA KINABALU: Sabah wants to promote itself as an international shopping holiday destination.
State Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Masidi Manjun said the government wants to work with tourism players in the country to market the state capital as a shopping holiday destination.
“With more shopping malls on the way, we believe Kota Kinabalu would become a shopping destination to many Asian tourists to complement our unbeatable naturally beautiful state.
“Nature tourism and shopping is an irresistible combination,” he said.
He added that the opening of 1Borneo Hypermall along Jalan Sulaman in March next year would be a catalyst to this new tourism product.
The ministry is targeting some 2.6 million tourists to visit Sabah next year, an increase of 300,000 tourists to this year’s target of 2.3 million tourists.
“We are going to work closely with tourism players in the country as well as abroad, to market Kota Kinabalu as a shopping holiday destination,” he said.
The confidence over the new 2.6 million tourists next year was also based on the double-digit growth in the State’s tourist arrival in the last few years, besides several other positive developments or indications in place, he added.
This including the fact that airlines like Silkair and AirAsia have increased their flight frequencies to Sabah and connectivity to other towns and Sabah has been greatly enhanced by the more reliable rural service connection provided by Maswings.
“We were also made to understand that Airasia has big plan to expand their routes from Kota Kinabalu to other Asian destinations when they take delivery of their new aircrafts next year.
“We also plan to work closely with other airlines like Royal Brunei Airlines (RBA) to bring in more Australian tourists to Kota Kinabalu via Bandar Seri Begawan (BSB),” he said.
The Minister was also obviously encouraged by this year’s tourist arrival in Sabah with a total of 1,971,643 tourists received as of October, a 16.4% increase over corresponding period of last year.
Of this figure, 765,784 were International tourists a 26.6% increase, while the remaining 1,205,859 were Domestic tourists, a 10.8% increase as compared to last year.
“Tourism receipt as at Oct 2007 is RM3.4 billion, way above the RM3.2 billion estimate for the entire 2007.
“We believed that by the end of this month we would get the targeted tourism arrival of 2.3 million, December being the peak of holiday month. All major hotels around Kota Kinabalu are now fully booked,” Masidi said.
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