|
2nd February, 2009
KOTA KINABALU: Sabah is taking steps to ensure that the cost of climbing up Mount Kinabalu is affordable to all Malaysians, following outcry over its spiralling costs.
State Tourism, Culture & Environment Minister Datuk Masidi Manjun said that they were in discussions with Sutera Sanctuary Lodges (SSL), a private company that manages the accommodation facilities at Kinabalu Park, to offer cheaper packages.
However, he explained that the accommodation rates remain at RM40 for locals and RM60 for foreigners, but the cost rose when the private operators provided a RM330 ‘two nights/three days’ per person package deal.
“The package deal undertaken by the private operators was to discourage tour agents from block-booking the mountain accommodation as if they booked, they have to pay the amount in full,” Masidi said yesterday.
However, he said that his officials at Kinabalu Park have asked the private operators not to force the climbers to take the RM330 package deal and have instead urged them to revise their rates.
“I am told by my officers that SSL had made a proposal for a package price ranging from RM140 (one night/one day) package for climbers.
“No final decision has been made but we will study it seriously,” he said when commenting on newspaper reports and complaints including letters to the editor by the public over high rates of accommodation to scale Mount Kinabalu.
Masidi said that they were contractually bound with the private operators through a 20-year privatisation deal signed in 1998.
SSL took over the privatisation in 2002 after the first company was asked to give it up due to poor performance.
Masidi, who took over the state tourism ministry in 2006, said they had to be fair to the operators who had put in money to upgrade the accommodation facilities at Kinabalu Park. “What we want is a win-win situation for everyone.”
Masidi, meanwhile, said steps were also being taken to develop two new routes up the mountain that would be operated totally by Kinabalu Parks.
“It will take some time and we would be able to provide cheaper cost to climb the mountain,’’ said Masidi, who explained that Mount Kinabalu prices were “cheap’’ compared to cost to climb mountains in other parts of the world.
|
