KUCHING, July 16 — The Sarawak government has allocated RM12.5 million to boost and transform Sarawak’s tourism landscape by leveraging on emerging digital technology for the next three years.

State Arts, Culture, Youth and Sports Minister Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah said it was in response to Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg’s call to capitalise on the digital economy to boost Sarawak’s tourism competitiveness.

"Our ministry has taken the initiative to embrace and redevelop our tourism web portal with enhanced and interactive contents.

"This includes developing Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality technology for tourism hotspots in the state starting with the Old Kuching Heritage area, in time for the Visit Sarawak Campaign to be launch at the end of the year,” he said when delivering his remarks during the First Meeting of the 18th Sarawak State Legislative Assembly here today.

Abdul Karim added that last year Sarawak received 4.85 million visitors, bringing in estimated tourist receipts of RM 8.59 billion while the arrival figures indicated an increase of 4.2 per cent as compared to 2016.

"The top five sources of tourist markets for Sarawak were Brunei Darussalam (1.73 million), Indonesia (513,442), the Philippines (68,380), Singapore (42,177) and China (38,204),”he said.

As for January to May this year, he said, the visitor arrivals figure was 1, 750,640, with an increase in tourist arrivals from China and Singapore.

"For China, 19,641 tourists came to Sarawak during the period of January to May 2018, this is an encouraging increase of 20.22 per cent compared to the corresponding period in 2017.

"For Singapore, the same corresponding period in 2018 indicated an increase of 15.80 per cent with a total of 17,856 Singaporean arrivals, "he said. — Bernama