Start selling Tawau packages – Christina

Domestic arrivals to Sabah increased by 2.8 percent, or a total of 2.518 million visitors in 2018.

Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Christina Liew said to date, there were 132 flights connecting Tawau with five Malaysian cities and one regional city weekly, namely Kuala Lumpur, Johor Bharu, Kuching, Kota Kinabalu, Sandakan, and Tarakan in Indonesia.

She said all connections were serviced by Malaysia Airlines, MASwing, AirAsia and Malindo Air providing a total of 21,296 seats weekly to Tawau Airport, which is the second largest airport in Sabah after Kota Kinabalu International Airport.

“In 2018, the Tawau Airport recorded 1.64 million passenger movement with 19.4 percent growth.

“This shows that the airport has exceeded its capacity of 1.4 million passengers commencing operations as a domestic airport in 2001. I am happy to announce if everything goes smoothly as planned, the commencement of works for the Tawau Airport expansion should take place after the Sandakan runway extension,” she said yesterday at the launching of CutiCuti Tawau Awareness Campaign.

A survey conducted by the Research Division of Sabah Tourism Board (STB) revealed that the top five preferred holiday activities for domestic travelers were viewing natural scenery (71.1%), relaxing by the beach/pool (54.4%), visiting local markets (54.4%), visiting famous landmarks (52%) and island/ snorkeling (41.5%), she said.

“Although the domestic market is our biggest market source, we believe there are still many that have never been to Sabah or East Malaysia in general,” she said.

Christina said Tawau had all the right ingredients of a holiday destination for domestic travelers; Tawau Hills Park, Bukit Gemok, Pasar Tanjung and the Confrontation Memorial as well as a gateway to Tun Sakaran Marine Park, were havens for travelers seeking beautiful beaches and islands.

These are some of the attractions that meet the criteria of becoming a preferred holiday destination for domestic travelers, she said.

However, there are challenges that need to be addressed to make this a realization. One of the challenges is that the level of tourism awareness among the people of Tawau is still in the growing stage, she said.

“I believe once they seize this opportunity, they may be able to change the socioeconomic landscape of Tawau, and reap the benefit of tourism, as how their fellow neighbour Semporna is experiencing,” she said.

She urged the people of Tawau, especially the youth, transportation providers, restaurants and coffee shops owners to help in promoting Tawau, and travel agents and operators to aggressively start selling Tawau packages.

“Seeing the potential of Tawau, I would also like to invite and encourage investors to invest in Tawau, especially in tourism infrastructure such as hotels and transportation as well as in other service industries,” she said.

Christina said since last year, her ministry, through the Sabah Tourism Board together with the state and national tourism associations, had initiated many programs to promote Tawau as a tourism destination, such as the launching of Tawau Tourism Products by Matta in July 2018, the launching of Cuti-Cuti Tawau at ITB Berlin in March 2019 (ITB Berlin is the world's largest tourism fair), the production of Tawau The Guide Book and the production of Cuti-Cuti Tawau: Top 20 Attraction booklet.

She said as of March 2019, Sabah had received 1,033,871 visitor arrivals with an increase of 9.1 percent compared to the same period in 2018. With this positive development, she believes Sabah will be able to reach its target of four million visitors by year end.

Also present were Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Environment permanent secretary William Baya, Sabah Tourism Board chairman Ken Pan Ying On, Matta Malaysia president Datuk Tan Kok Liang, Tawau Municipal Council acting president Joseph Pang, Consulate Republic of Indonesia in Tawau, represented by Ibu Septania Rubi Pareswari, Ministry of Tourism and Culture Malaysia director Jamilah Abdul Halim and Sabah Tourism acting general manager Noredah Othman.