Kota Kinabalu: Sabah will receive its first international flight from Singapore on April 16, following the reopening of the country’s borders early this month.
Sabah Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Jafry Ariffin said the first flight will be from Air Asia and Scoot Airlines will be on April 29, also from Singapore.
Royal Brunei Airlines will be the next to resume its operation from Bandar Seri Begawan to Kota Kinabalu beginning May 6, with a twice weekly flight on Friday and Sunday, he told the media during the launch of Sutera Harbour Resort (SHR)’s Juadah Keluarga Malaysia breaking of fast programme near here Monday.
“I was told the load factor for the flights were encouraging as everybody has been waiting eagerly to visit Sabah since the country’s borders reopened,” said Jafry.
“I have also received invitations to meet and discuss with several tourism players in Singapore and the Sabah Tourism Board (STB) is making the arrangements for the visit soon,” he said.
SHR group chief executive officer Gilbert Ee said they want to market Kota Kinabalu as a destination for Singaporeans.
“Now we can travel quarantine-free from any country to Singapore without special arrangements,” he said.
“So Sutera Harbour Resort, with Singapore owners are contacting its agents in the republic as we are not only marketing Kota Kinabalu City but also the islands and Mount Kinabalu.”
On preparations to welcome back visitors, STB chief executive officer Noredah Othman said the Sabah government had allocated RM10 million to upgrade all the 500 tourism products in the state.
She said almost 90 per cent of the work has been completed. For community-based tourism (CoBT), she said they were ready to welcome foreign tourists as they are reopen for domestic visitors.
Since CoBT has been emphasised as one of the products to be promoted, she said guidance will be provided to enhance their standards to Asean community-based levels.
“We hope more CoBT will get the Asean community-based standard accreditation by 2050, we have a long way ahead, though last year we had an operator in Sandakan that won an international award,” she said.
Kampung Batu Puteh in the Lower Kinabatangan River was awarded the inaugural best tourism village award by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation in Madrid, Spain, last December.
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