KUCHING : Piasau State Assemblyman, Dato’ Sebastian Ting said to solve the problem of Mulu tourism industry in the long run is through construction of roads from Miri to Mulu National Park. The road is important for both the international tourists and also to c a t e r f o r o u r o w n p e o – p l e i n M i r i D i v i s i o n , Limbang, Lawas, Bintulu and Brunei involving a total population of 1.18 million. Ting who is also Secretary- General of Sarawak Uni ted People’s Par t y (SUPP) sai d Mulu National Park is a world renowned and the only world heritage in Sarawak.
It is heartbreaking to see that our tourism industry in Mulu is expected to suffer losses of RM 5 million in revenues next year due to the reduction of MASwings flight frequency to Mulu.
“ I concur with the statement by Sarawak Tourism Federation (STF) President, Philip Yong that the State Government should take a serious view into the Mulu flight reduction issue including eliminating the dynamic fare structure and introduce pricing cap on flights fare for flights within Sarawak and to Sabah. In the last Dewan Undangan Negeri (DUN) sitting, I had said that the only access to Mulu for tourists was by air to the small airport of the park. Flights could be cancelled and s e v e r e l y d e l a y e d d u e t o poor weather conditions that wo u l d ma k e i t u n s a f e t o fly to the small airport.
No tourists would want to travel half way round the world to be told that they would not be able get to Mulu National Park due to bad weather. This leads to injustice to the tourists and creates bad publicity. The new road can stop at a river jetty near a kampung and outside the boundary of the National Park. The jetty point can be manned by Park personnel. The jetty point must have facilities like secured car parks, café, toilet facilities and shops selling local products. Tourists can only enter the Park by river transport from the jetty,” he added.
The road proposal, he pointed out, will help open up the Mulu Nat ional Park that will benefit the community economically, just like the Pan-Borneo Highway upon its completion. The Jetty Entrance Point is where we can manage the number of people entering the Park, just in case it gets too many visitors and the government does not want too many visitors in the Park at any one peak period. Use the online HTML Editor to compose the content for your website easily.
