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12th March, 2010
KOTA KINABALU: Sabah’s plentiful variants of orchids, identified as the latest niche tourism product to be aggressively developed by the State, will be showcased at the RHS Chelsea Floral Show – England’s world famous floral exhibition.
Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ng Yen Yen said they are inviting orchid expert Anthony L Lamb to host a seminar at the show to be held in London this May to help introduce to global floral community the many exotic species of orchids native to Sabah.
“Sabah has many unique orchids and this is something we that we need to tell the world. Park and garden is the new highly lucrative sector with people traveling across the world to look at unique flower,” she said to reporters after attending a dialogue and briefing with the State Tourism ministry here yesterday.
Lamb, a Sri Lankan-born British botanist, has been researching orchids in Sabah for over 40 years and a respected authority specialising in flora of Borneo.
Working in Sabah since 1962, he helped develop agricultural settlement schemes around Tawau and set up the Tenom Orchid Centre as a Sabah State Government conservation project.
He is also the co-author of Rhododendrons of Sabah (1988) and Pitcher Plants of Borneo (1996), and a coordinator and a co-author of the popular Orchids of Borneo series.
Ng said her Ministry is working closely with Sabah Tourism to diversify and develop niche product for Mount Kinabalu, which is one of Sabah’s biggest tourism attractions, with orchid being among the areas to be given focus.
Meanwhile, Sabah Tourism Board chairman Tengku Datuk Dr Zainal Adlin said Borneo is known as ‘the orchid island of the world’, boasting an estimated 1,200 species of orchid in Mount Kinabalu alone.
About 800 of these species, according to Adlin, have been identified and recorded through taxonomy studies so far.
On another note, Ng expressed her confidence that all the tourism development projects under the Ninth Malaysia Plan (9MP) in Sabah, for which RM62 million was allocated, will all be completed by end of this year.
During the meeting, Ng also discussed with the State’s tourism their plans to optimally utilise the allocation under the upcoming Tenth Malaysia Plan (10MP) and maximise the growth in the tourism industry in Sabah.
Accessibility, she said, is Sabah’s biggest challenge to further develop its tourism sector and the ministry has been discussing with the airliners on increasing the numbers of flights into destinations in the State.
She added that water accessibility would also be given attention where jetties, especially the one in Menumbok, to be improved and better equipped as a tourist gateway, in particular for visitors from neighbouring Brunei.
Part of London’s summer social season, the Chelsea Floral Show is the most famous garden show in the United Kingdom, perhaps the most famous gardening event in the world.
Held for five days every May, the annual event is the garden design equivalent of a catwalk at a fashion show where new plants are often launched and the popularity of various varieties of flowers elevated under the focus of the horticultural world.
Obviously the right venue for promoting flowers, the event is attended by 157,000 visitors each year, a number limited by the capacity of its 11-acre site.
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