Keeping our fingers crossed for the tourism bub­ble ini­tia­tive could be im­ple­mented in Sarawak soon

Recently I have shared my comments with the local media fraternity in which we hope for the tourism bub­ble ini­tia­tive could be im­ple­mented in Sarawak, fol­low­ing the success story in Langkawi. Our Min­istry of Tourism, Arts and Culture Sarawak to­gether with the Sarawak Tourism Board (STB) and the Sarawak Busi­ness Events (BESarawak) have many tourism pro­grammes and prod­ucts that should have been an­nounced in early March, but had to be put on the back­burner due to the Covid-19 pan­demic.

These pro­grammes and prod­ucts would be an­nounced soon, upon the re­open­ing of the ‘tourism gates. When the tourism sec­tor opens, we are expecting a lot of tourists to come into Sarawak and the ‘Langkawi Tourism Bub­ble’, which kicked off last Thurs­day, sig­ni­fied the peo­ple’s ex­cite­ment and an­tic­i­pa­tion over re­turn­ing to travel af­ter be­ing in a pro­longed lock­down.

There­fore, if the tourism bub­ble started in Langkawi for Penin­su­lar Malaysia, we also hoped that the same ini­tia­tive could be im­ple­mented in Sarawak, with Mulu and Niah be­ing amongst the po­ten­tial des­ti­na­tions. I be­lieve YB Datuk Seri Hajah Nancy Shukri, our Min­is­ter of Tourism, Arts and Cul­ture or MOTAC would con­sider im­ple­ment­ing this ini­tia­tive in Sarawak.

If this tourism bub­ble is im­ple­mented in Sarawak, I be­lieve the same stan­dard op­er­at­ing pro­ce­dures (SOP) would be ap­plied as those used in Langkawi and the success of such ini­tia­tive would be a yard­stick for the gov­ern­ment in open­ing up more tourist des­ti­na­tions na­tion­wide in the fu­ture.