KUCHING: Sarawak is optimistic of achieving five million visitor arrivals this year. Assistant Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture Datuk Lee Khim Shin said a total of 1,797,634 visitors were recorded from January to May this year, an increase of 2.68 percent compared to 1,750,640 for the same period last year.
He said July and August will be the peak months when huge visitor arrivals are expected, especially with two popular international events, namely the Rainforest World Music Festival (RWMF) in Kuching and Borneo Jazz Festival (BJF) in Miri during the period.
RWMF will be held from July 12 to 14, while the Borneo Jazz Festival will take place from July 19 to 21.
According to Lee, the date for the Borneo Jazz Festival was intentionally shifted to July because after the RWMF music lovers may also want to attend the jazz festival.
He said this year’s Borneo Jazz Festival will be held by the seaside with a beautiful sunset and bigger crowd capacity.
“With promotion held overseas, we hope that more foreign visitors will visit Sarawak especially from China and Taiwan who spend more money when they are here,” said Lee to New Sarawak Tribune after the launch of new nine divisional tourism brochures at the Sarawak Tourism Board (STB) office here, yesterday.
He said last week’s promotion of the Borneo Jazz Festival was held in Brunei was well-received, adding that many Bruneians had expressed their keenest to attend.
Earlier at the launch of the tourism brochures, Lee said STB had prepared nine divisional tourism brochures which feature the lesser known divisions to all tourist information centres in the state.
The new nine divisional tourism brochures is a series of initiative under the “Visit Sarawak Campaign” and the outcome from the content committee chaired by Lee.
Lee said though some of the divisions border on rural, the areas have their own charm and every location is rich with culture and an authentic way of life unique to any other part of Sarawak.
“These brochures will also be used for international promotion during roadshows and trade events abroad,” he said, adding that they are also available for downloading on the Sarawak Tourism Board
website.
Prior to this, only Kuching, Sibu, and Miri have their own travel guide brochures but in view of the “Visit Sarawak Campaign”, it is high time that the lesser known divisions be highlighted and promoted through the new divisional tourism brochures.
Lee had also suggested that the brochures be translated to other languages, particularly in Malay, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.
Meanwhile, STB event and corporation relations division director Angelina Patricia Bateman said the publication of the brochures was a joint collaboration by STB and the Resident Offices throughout Sarawak.
She said the team did a series of workshops since its first meeting in September last year until the final production of the brochures last May.
The brochures will be available at visitor information counters and the Resident’s offices state-wide.
