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| Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg cuts the ribbon to officiate at the launch of the ‘Air Asia Sarawak Campaign Livery’ at KIA. With him are Abdul Karim and Abdul Aziz, on his right. |
KUCHING: Sarawak is confident of achieving its target of five million tourist arrivals this year, despite AirAsia’s plan of discontinuing its Kuching-Shenzhen route.
Minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture, Youth and Sports Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah believes that Sarawak should still be able to welcome tourists from China coming in via Sabah and towards this end, his ministry is making certain arrangements with Sabah to facilitate this.
“Aside from that, tourists from China can still come to Sarawak via Kuala Lumpur,” he told reporters after the launching of ‘AirAsia Sarawak Campaign Livery’ by Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg at Kuching International Airport (KIA) yesterday.
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| Visit Sarawak Campaign |
Based on last year’s arrivals, there was an increase in the number of tourists coming to Sarawak from Singapore and China – prompting Sarawak to set its five-million tourist arrival’s goal this year versus last year’s four million.
Abdul Karim said Sarawak could also expect ‘big arrivals’ from Indonesia, adding that the medical tourism in Sarawak is ‘very big’.
“Last year alone, more than 40,000 patients from Indonesia came to Sarawak. That’s why our private hospital has an office in Pontianak,” he said.
The minister also said the five-million tourist arrival’s target should translate into a return of RM8 billion to Sarawak.
“(My) ministry is aggressively looking into ways to boost tourist arrivals,” said Abdul Karim, also expressing his hope that AirAsia could be a part of this Sarawak campaign.
In his remarks, AirAsia non-independent, non-executive director Datuk Abdul Aziz Abu Bakar assured everyone that the low-cost carrier would address the Kuching-Shenzhen sector ‘very soon’.
“At the moment, we have already decided that we are going to stop that flight, but we are still negotiating. Whatever it is, we will help Sarawak make the numbers, so don’t worry.
“We are aware that Sarawak has got a target of five million (tourist) arrivals, so we are going to work together and make sure that they can achieve its target.”
According to Abdul Aziz, the flight to Shenzhen is just ‘one small sector’ – he later gave his assurance that AirAsia would link Sarawak via other flights.
“If you look at AirAsia as a whole, it has the most number of connectivity compared with any other airlines in Asia. In terms of connectivity, we are bigger that other airlines.
“Of course, we will keep on increasing the number of connectivity. We now have 13 flights a day from Kuala Lumpur to here (Kuching). During the holidays, we also increase the number of flights.
“Now we are opening the Kota Kinabalu-Sibu flight, so we are concentrating on looking at new routes, new destinations and all that. So by stopping one destination, it will not make much difference.”
Abdul Aziz also acknowledged that AirAsia has a role to play in helping Sarawak tourism because the airline group is committed to Sarawak, and he also believed that at the end of the day, Sarawak ‘would get the numbers’.
“Yes, we can understand. You can be frustrated but at the end of the day when you see the numbers coming, that is what it is.
“Now this flight, the Kuching-Shenzhen, is going to stop, but at the end of the day, you may see it’s not five million, but 5.2 million people coming – that’s great, that’s fantastic,” he said. -TheBorneoPost
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