Sarawak tourism industry slightly affected by global Coronavirus situation

KUCHING - The tourism industry in Sarawak is expected to slightly be affected by recent China’s ban on in­ter­na­tional group travel to con­tain the deadly coro­n­avirus out­break. Malaysia’s move to stop is­su­ing visas for Chi­nese cit­i­zens from Wuhan and the ar­eas around Hubei prov­ince has also badly hit the tourism in­dus­try in neighbouring Sabah.

This was mentioned recently by Sabah As­so­ci­a­tion of Tour and Travel Agents (Satta) pres­i­dent Datuk Seri Win­ston Liaw who has asked the gov­ern­ment to step in and help the tourism sec­tor as Satta ex­pects a sharp drop in tourist ar­rivals to Sabah.

He said about 45 per­cent of tourists ar­riv­ing in Sabah presently are from China and with the pol­icy change on trav­els im­posed by the coun­try due to the dis­ease, the tourism sec­tor in Sabah is ex­pect­ing the worst. From Jan­uary to Septem­ber last year, China was the third big­gest source of for­eign tourists (2.41 mil­lion ar­rivals) for Sabah af­ter Sin­ga­pore (7.8 mil­lion) and In­done­sia (2.7 mil­lion).

“The prob­lems are ex­cep­tional. In my 30 years in this line, this will be one of the most chal­leng­ing so far,” he told re­porters af­ter meet­ing with other tourism play­ers from Malaysian As­so­ci­a­tion of Tour and Travel Agents (Matta) and Malaysia Chi­nese Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion (MCTA).

He added that to date, a to­tal of 22 tour groups from Sabah had left for China.

The groups have no place to go, he said, since all the at­trac­tion points have been shut.

Restau­rants have also been closed due to the di­rec­tive from the gov­ern­ment, he said.

“We have hun­dreds of tour mem­bers now stuck in China and they have re­quested to re­turn early,” he said.

Liaw said it is es­ti­mated that be­tween 600 and 700 tour mem­bers fol­low­ing the tours from Sabah are now stranded in China, ex­clud­ing Free In­de­pen­dent Trav­el­ers (FIT).

“If we in­clude the FIT, there are over 1,000 of them now stranded there,” he said.

He added that so far, five tour groups to China from Sabah have also been can­celled.

“It is un­for­tu­nate that it has to hap­pen in 2020,” he said.

He then urged tour mem­bers who have booked to travel to China to can­cel their trip since the pri­or­ity would be their safety.

Liaw also asked the air­lines in­volved to as­sist the tour op­er­a­tors in­volved in Sabah as the lat­ter will in­cur losses.

“With some air­lines, they can pro­vide re­fund while some al­low their trav­ellers to de­fer their dates of trav­els,” he said.

How­ever, he said those booked on char­ter flights would face a prob­lem as they won’t be able to de­fer their travel itin­er­ar­ies.

Nev­er­the­less, com­mu­ni­ca­tion is un­der­way to see if re­funds could be ar­ranged, he said.

In ad­di­tion, the tourism sec­tor in Sabah is also af­fected by the China gov­ern­ment’S de­ci­sion to sus­pend trav­els abroad for its cit­i­zens.

Liaw said var­i­ous play­ers rang­ing from ho­tels to restau­rants to tour buses would be ad­versely im­pacted by the de­ci­sion.

He added that all tour op­er­a­tors op­er­at­ing on pre­paid mode and ask if the gov­ern­ment could come in to help over­come this prob­lem so that the losses to the in­dus­try could be min­i­mized.

In view of the cur­rent sce­nario, he ex­pects the in­dus­try will take up to six months to re­cover, and that some, who are faced with weak­ened fi­nan­cial ca­pa­bil­i­ties, may not make it at all.

“They may have to close their op­er­a­tion,” he said.

He also said that the sce­nario would also have neg­a­tive im­pact on the em­ploy­ment scene in Sabah and that the prospect of peo­ple be­ing laid off from work is very likely.

Matta pres­i­dent Tan Kok Liang said tour agents had been re­ceiv­ing a lot of can­cel­la­tions, although he did not have the ac­tual num­ber.

As of now, Tan said, in­bound and out­bound tourism be­tween Malaysia and China have been se­verely af­fected.

“The Wuhan coro­n­avirus will af­fect the na­tional tourism in­dus­try. Matta hopes that the sit­u­a­tion is con­tained and that it will last only for a short pe­riod.

“We hope the sit­u­a­tion will be con­tained and will only be for the short term, other­wise the reper­cus­sions will be more se­vere as it will af­fect the global tourism,” he said. NEWS SOURCE: The Borneo Post (Dated 28.01.2020)