Abdul Karim (centre) symbolically launched the ‘Kuching Metro Electric City Bus’ at Borneo Convention Centre Kuching (BCCK) here today while Lai (third left) and others look on. – Photo by Roystein Emmor
KUCHING (March 2): The Sarawak government will be paying about RM15 million per month to hotel operators who have consented for their hotels to be used as quarantine centres, said Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah.
Abdul Karim, who is a member of the State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC), said the Sarawak government had since September, last year paid about RM30 million every two months to the hotel operators for their hotels to serve as quarantine centres.
Abdul Karim said designating hotels as quarantine centres was part of the state’s efforts to assist the hard-battered hotel industry during this Covid-19 pandemic.
“I don’t have the exact figure for the payments to hotel operators but when we do our calculations, it comes out to more than RM30 million every two months. Nonetheless, we will be paying them month-by-month now so the average is about over RM15 million per month,” he said during a press conference after officially launched the ‘Kuching Metro Electric City Bus’ at Borneo Convention Centre Kuching (BCCK) here today.
Earlier during the launching ceremony, Abdul Karim said with the commencement of Covid-19 mass vaccination programme, the domestic travel within the country and the state is expected to slowly recover in the second half of this year, with an anticipation of visitor arrivals of 1.1 million with an estimated tourism receipt of RM2.64 billion.
The estimated tourism receipt, however, would depend greatly on the Covid-19 global situation, he added.
“The local communities can participate in community-based tourism such as homestay, local hosts, craft and souvenirs making to reap the benefits from tourism, especially in raising their household income,” he said.
He said the ministry hoped all of its policies, directions and strategies could be transformed into more opportunities for the benefit of the local communities and the strategies planned were well within the achievable range.
“My ministry has been implementing short-term support for recovery of the tourism, arts and culture industry with the support and active engagement with various tourism industry players and stakeholders to revive the state tourism sector.”
Some of the short-term recovery measures included building confidence to travel through strict standard operating procedures (SOPs) endorsed by SDMC, discounted travel incentives through ‘Sia Sitok Campaign’, introducing incentive for home grown business events, continuous capacity building and research to prepare for the return of tourists.
“Nevertheless, I believe that we still can revive our tourism industry by boosting the domestic tourism activities with our Sia Sitok Sarawak Tour Package and enhancing the confidence of the people to travel domestically while the borders are still closed.”
He said the ‘Sia Sitok Campaign’ had generated positive response with its traveling period being extended to March 31, this year and the campaign had collected over RM1.569 million in sales for 941 tour packages and 5,668 travellers.
As a result, Abdul Karim said his ministry will work closely with Sarawak Tourism Board to roll out ‘Sia Sitok 2.0’, a new version of the campaign where a total of 60 packages will be launched by this month, offering a wide range of domestic tour packages and benefiting the tour industry.
When asked on his opinion about a proposal requiring visitors to present documents showing they have been vaccinated before entering state, Abdul Karim said many countries were already studying the proposal and the state might consider similar approach.
“I believe the time will come when visitors who have been vaccinated would be subjected to less stringent restrictions for them to travel into our state. As for inter-district travel, I personally opined there would be less restrictions as well once 60 or 70 per cent of the state population have been inculcated.”
Furthermore, Abdul Karim remarked the visitor arrivals to the state had dropped 74 per cent last year to about 1.2 million as compared to the corresponding period in 2019, amounting to about 4.67 million visitors, due to the unprecedented impacts of Covid-19 pandemic.
He also pointed out tourism receipt had declined by as much as 75 per cent to RM2.88 billion as compared to the same corresponding period in 2019, resulting in the state tourism industry suffering an estimated total loss of a staggering RM8.69 billion since the pandemic.
Among those in attendance during the launching ceremony Henz Pacific Sdn Bhd managing director Henry Lai, Deputy Ministers Datuk Snowdan Lawan and Datuk Sebastian Ting.