SARAWAK’S battered tourism industry will flicker with life at the end of the year, state minister Abdul Karim Hamzah said. 

The state’s tourism, arts and culture minister said he is optimistic that the state will reopen for domestic tourism before the end of the year and international travel by the next. 

He said with thousands of industry front-liners and 81.3% of the state’s adult population or 1.66 million to date have had their first dose of Covid-19 vaccination, the prospects of Sarawak easing its travel restrictions and accelerating the industry’s recovery have heightened. 

“Sarawak’s tourism sector will be one of the first economic sectors to be reopened,” he told reporters after chairing the Sarawak Tourism Coordination Committee meeting at his office in Petrajaya this afternoon. 

Karim said business and cultural events as well as festivals are to restart after the movement-control order is lifted. 

Nonetheless, he said, most of the events will be held in hybrid mode as the first steps to help the creative industry and promote travel in Sarawak. 

“When the (country’s) sky reopens, Sarawak will be more than ready for tourism,” he said. 

He also said Sarawak will consider opening up green bubble travel to allow vaccinated domestic citizens from the peninsula and Sabah as well as visitors from Singapore, Brunei, Indonesia and other countries to visit the state. 

Karim said his ministry is preparing the requirements and guidelines on reopening the tourism sector. 

He said his ministry has been implementing short-term measures for recovery with the support and active engagement with various tourism industry players and stakeholders. 

The measures include instilling confidence in travelling during the pandemic, continuing the discounted travel incentives within the state via the Sia Sitok campaign, promoting interstate travel via the visitor incentives packages (VIP) and propping the hotel industry from total collapse by turning them as quarantine centres. 

Sia Sitok Sarawak 1.0 saw good response, according to Karim. It generated RM1.57 million in sales for 941 tour packages with 5,668 participants.

Sia Sitok 2.0 was launched on March 31.

“The wider range of domestic tour packages will create more interest among locals to travel widely in our state while benefiting the tour industry as a whole,” Karim said.

“We are also working with the hotel industry through Malaysian Association of Hotels and Malaysian Budget Hotels Association to launch Sia Sitok Accommodation.”  

Under the package, hotel accommodation is discounted up to 50%. 

Karim said the state’s tour and travel industry has been battered and bruised by the pandemic. 

He said visitor arrivals in the state dropped 74%, from 4,662,419 in 2019 to 1,199,872 last year, while from January to June this year, visitor arrivals plunged 93.26 % compared with the corresponding period last year. 

“The tourism receipt declined 75% in 2020 compared with that in 2019 to just RM 2.88 billion, which is an estimated loss of RM 8.69 billion,” he said.

He also said the World Tourism Organization panel of experts’ latest survey showed a mixed outlook for this year. 

The experts foresee a growing demand for open-air and nature-based tourism activities with domestic tourism and “slow travel” experiences gaining increasing interest. 

What is of note, Karim said, is that most of the experts do not see a return to pre-pandemic levels happening before 2023. – July 28, 2021.