UNDETERRED by past failures, Sarawak’s Tourism Ministry is again in talks with “local and several airlines from China” to explore the possibility of mounting direct flights from Kuching to major Chinese cities.

State Tourism, Arts, Culture, Youth and Sports Minister Abdul Karim Hamzah said in his opening remarks at the annual state tourism committee meeting in Kuching that his ministry was also “working hard to realise direct flights between Kuching and Jakarta”.

Karim said direct flights to major Chinese cities was key to tapping into the growing number of tourist arrivals from China.

Last year, China was the state’s top growing market with 44,025 arrivals, a 15.24% growth in numbers compared with 2017.

Sarawak received 4.43 million visitors last year, with the top five number of visitors from Brunei, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and China.

The state is aiming for five million visitors this year.

Karim said air connectivity was of utmost importance to develop the state’s tourism industry.

“The Sarawak government has tried very hard to enhance air connectivity through collaboration with AirAsia and Royal Brunei Airlines,” he said.

While AirAsia has launched direct flights between Kuching and Tawau at the end of 2017, along with direct flights between Kuching and Bandar Seri Begawan, it had, on February 28 this year, “rationalised” its direct flights from Kuching to Shenzhen.

The flight is now routed through Kuala Lumpur.

Currently, direct flights to Kuching, apart from Kuala Lumpur, are from Singapore (Scoot, Malaysia Airlines, Malindo, AirAsia), Brunei (Royal Brunei Airlines) and Kota Kinabalu (MAS, MasWings, AirAsia).

Hong Kong Airlines in 2017 abruptly ended its Hong Kong-Kuching flights.

Hong Kong Airlines mounted the flights on May 28, 2016, after an agreement was reached with the Sarawak Tourism Board in January 2016.

The inaugural flight on May 28 was served by an Airbus A320.

Singapore budget carrier Tiger Airways mounted direct flights between Singapore and Kuching in 2008 but that, too, came to an end in July 2013.

Another low-cost airline based in Singapore, Jetstar Asia Airways, made a similar attempt in 2009 but ended its services in March the next year.

Low load was reportedly the major cause in all the decisions to discontinue the direct flights.

“We were then too far ahead of time,” Karim said of the failures.

“There was a lack of tourism infrastructure. What we had then was not attractive to pull in tourists,” he said.

Karim also said one promising sector of the Chinese tourism market the state was studying and hoped to exploit was the flight of people escaping the cold, harsh Chinese winters to the country’s tropical south, like Hainan island.

“For four months in a year, the island is creaking under the weight of so many visitors. The cost of staying in hotels have shot through the roof.

“They can come here to Sarawak for four months to escape the cold.”

Karim said he will lead a delegation to meet the federal Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Mohammadin Ketapi in Putrajaya tomorrow.

He said he will “highlight a few important issues” with Mohammadin and “hopefully, this will create a better understanding, besides enhancing closer rapport between Sarawak and the federal government”. – April 3, 2019.