Include China, S.Korea in travel bubble – Satta
KOTA KINABALU: Sabah Association of Tour and Travel Agents (Satta) has urged the Tourism, Arts and Culture Ministry (Motac) to include China and South Korea, the two largest tourist source countries for Sabah, in the latter’s travel bubble arrangement.
Satta president, Datuk Seri Winston Liaw yesterday welcomed Motac’s move to create travel bubbles with neighbouring countries but he was bewildered as to why China, Taiwan, Macau and Hong Kong, which made up a high percentage of Sabah’s tourist arrivals for the past 10 years, have been left out from the arrangement.
He pointed out that Chinese tourists comprised more than 40 percent of the international arrivals to Sabah and these travellers have contributed significantly to the State’s economy.
“We do not understand why other sectors such as construction and manufacturing are allowed to operate despite their alarming positive Covid19 cases but not the tourism industry.
“If our international borders remain closed, many industry players including hoteliers, tour companies, tourism transport companies will die very soon,” he said.
If that happens, Liaw said Sabah would not be able to accommodate the influx of tourists when the tourism industry rebound in the future after the vaccination programme was implemented.
Under such circumstances, he said the economy would take double the time to recover.
Hence, he appealed to the government to immediately propose travel bubble arrangement with the two largest tourist source countries for Sabah, namely China and South Korea, aside from other nations.
Satta also urged the government to discuss with Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) on offering collateral-free term loan at low interest rates to tourism industry players to help them survive and stay afloat during the pandemic.
Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Nancy Shukri said discussion had been held with the Health, Home Affairs and Foreign Affairs Ministries to explore opportunities for the creation of travel bubble arrangements with neighbouring countries during the Covid-19 situation.
She said among the identified countries were Brunei, Singapore and Thailand,as well as other Asean countries and the Asia-Pacific countries such as Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand as these places were identified as safe by the World Health Organisation.