Sarawak to continue efforts in bringing in more international flights — Lee
MIRI: All initiatives are all go as far as convincing foreign carriers to come to Sarawak, assures Assistant Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture Datuk Lee Kim Shin.
However, he acknowledges that to convince foreign airlines has not been easy, as there are other equally attractive destinations that they can look to.
“But we are trying our best and hopefully, with ROUTES Asia 2019 in Cebu, the Philippines, it could serve as a touch-point to meet up with airline companies across the region and we want to convince them that connectivity into Sarawak can be a viable business,” said Lee.
Lee was in Cebu earlier this week for ROUTES Asia 2019 – regarded as the region’s key meeting of airline bigwigs and airport executives.
He led the Sarawak Tourism Board ( STB)’s delegation to the high-profile gathering of nine regional airlines and four airport operators.
He reiterated that having scheduled meetings and engagements with these players had enabled the Sarawak delegates to understand more about the business and aspects of professionalism in the tourism industry.
“We made some headway and gained some promising results from the engagement sessions – this keeps our hopes up in securing better connectivity into Sarawak.
“Certainly, we have to work hard and be able to give enough reasons to convince these airline operators to consider mounting flights into Sarawak,” he added.
Acknowledging that connectivity must be propelled by sufficient number of passengers and travellers, Lee also stressed that this must be complemented by an environment that would be conducive to business.
“Attractive destinations and tourism products are also among the many aspects sought by travellers and airline operators, and having all of them could attract many more (people) coming here,” he said.