News & Updates
Tourism earns Sabah RM3.8 billion

Date Posted: 19 Nov 2009

KOTA KINABALU: Sabah expects a total of 2.231 million tourists to arrive this year with revenue of RM3.87 billion.

Next year, boosted by the release of the H1N1 vaccine before winter, the projected number of arrivals is 2.3 million with revenue of RM4 billion or an increase of 2.2 per cent.

Between January and September this year, 1,569.476 visitors came to Sabah comprising 1,219,113 domestic tourists and 440,109 international tourists.

The figure was an increase of 1.3 per cent compared to the same period last year  with domestic tourists recording a hike of 4.6 per cent which helped to cushion the impact of the economic crisis and H1N1 pandemic.

Simirlarly, several international markets showed an increase in the number of visitors between January and September 2009.

At the lead is Singapore with 143.3 per cent, Switzerland 35.7 per cent, Italy 26.16 per cent, Norway 21 per cent, Germany 19.7 per cent, Netherlands 16.4 per cent, USA 12.9 per cent, Finland 12.1 per cent, Belgium and Luxembourg 11.5 per cent, Sweden 10.9 per cent, France 6.7 per cent, New Zealand 4.5 per cent and Canada 0.8 per cent.

Tourism Environment and Culture Minister Datuk Masidi Manjun was pleased to announce that contrary to a prediction by the World Tourism Organisation, the arrival of global tourists in Sabah went up slightly in July this year compared to June when it had gone down by 7 per cent and dipped 10 per cent in May.

The organisation predicted that the tourism industry would drop between - 6 per cent to - 4 per cent as a result of a sluggish world economy and the spread of the pandemic Influenza A virus.

Speaking in his winding up speech at the State Assembly sitting yesterday, Masidi was confident the performance of his ministry would not suffer even though it was allocated 7 per cent less for next year than in 2009.

The budget for the ministry next year is RM112,096,510 compared to RM120,694,910 previously.

(Source: New Sabah Times, 19 Nov 2009)

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