KOTA KINABALU, May 8 — Sabah’s tourism receipts for the January-February 2020 period fell by 21.6 per cent or RM320 million year-on-year to RM1.16 billion, said Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Christina Liew.
The state tourism receipts for the same period last year amounted to about RM1.48 billion, said Liew who is also Sabah Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister.
She said tourism was among the sectors in the state most affected by Covid-19 as industry players including hoteliers, travel agencies, as well as food and beverages establishments were unable to operate as usual during this time.
“During the first two months of this year, Sabah registered a 16.4 per cent drop in tourists (both international and domestic) to 567,108 compared with 678,128 tourists in the same period last year.
“The state started to see a significant decrease in February, declining by 35.1 per cent compared to February last year due to drop in travel demand and supply affecting mainly arrivals from the Asian region,” she told Bernama here, today.
Earlier, Liew handed over 2,000 pieces of face masks to staff of Sabah RTM and the Malaysian National News Agency (Bernama) at the Ministry of Communications and Multimedia Integrated Complex here, today.
Liew said her ministry would not give up but would continue to devise various strategies in efforts to rejuvenate the state’s flagging tourism industry once the pandemic is over.
“Therefore, I urge all the tourism industry players in this state not to give up. We need to move forward as Sabah has the best tourism products.
“For now, we will just upgrade our tourism products and assets. Hopefully, we will be ready when the visitors start coming in,” she said, adding her ministry was optimistic the state would start to receive visitors by year-end.
She also informed that her ministry would call all the tourism stakeholders such as hotel associations, travel agencies, and tourist guide associations to discuss the best policies for them to move forward in an effort to bring back the glory of Sabah tourism sector.
The ministry would also present the Sabah Tourism Recovery Plan to the state government soon to disclose its strategic planning for the sector, she added. — Bernama
