MAS may have crippled Sabah tourism

Some 2.64 million tourists visited Sabah last year but with MAS' move to cancel certain routes, the numbers may drop in 2012.

KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah government has cautioned that the state tourism industry will face a challenging year due to Malaysia Airlines (MAS) recent decision to cut several flights to and from the state.

“The rationalization will especially affect the Japanese and Western Australia markets”, said Sabah Minister of Tourism, Culture & Environment Sabah, Masidi Manjun recently.

“There are now no direct flights between Sabah and Japan. As for Australia, STB (Sabah Tourism Board) is working hard with other airlines to continue offering Sabah holiday packages,” he said.

Masidi also maintained that it was premature, in fact short-sightedness for MAS to cancel the KK-Perth route.

“It should have continued to develop the route as there was very strong growth of Australian arrival in Sabah last year, i.e 33.3 percent. I am sure the route would have eventually been very profitable for MAS in a relatively short period of time,” he explained.

He noted that recent news reported strong public opinion against the route cuts into Sabah by Malaysia Airlines affecting direct air access from Australia, Korea and Japan as well as the suspension of Malaysia Airlines low cost carrier, Firefly.

He added that as for this year, Sabah is targeting regional and domestic markets and is working closely with local industry players to improve the quality of its products, as well as packaging attractive holiday offers during low-season.

“We are also looking into collaborating with 3-star hotels to offer affordable holiday packages during non-peak season to achieve the 2012 projection of 2.93 million visitors. This means we have to do better, and be more aggressive.

“We are open to work with other airlines to achieve this target,” he said.

2.84 million visitors
Touching on last year’s tourists arrival in Sabah, he noted that it was a record-breaking all-time high with 2.84 millions visitors.

The figure not only exceeded Sabah Tourism Board’s (STB) arrival projection of 2.64 million for 2011 but has also achieved their 2012 projection of 2.75 million visitors.

“It is a 13.6 percent increase compared to 2010’s total arrival and an estimated RM4.98 billion in tourism receipts, proving the importance of air accessibility for the industry,” he said.

Masidi congratulated the tourism players in the state for this better-than-expected result.

He attributed this to the close rapport between STB and the industry players, and their hard work.

“STB’s marketing strategies were very effective and everyone has worked on ‘overdrive’ mode to ensure success,” he said.

While acknowledging that it was an unpredictable year last year, with the flight issues, he was nonetheless pleased to note that Sabah recorded double digit growth every month since March last year.

“This consistency of growth shows the strong demand of visitors coming to our state be it for leisure or business. 96% of these arrivals come by air.

“The numbers show it all, air accessibility into Sabah is essential and the only way for the industry to grow,” said Masidi.

Strong markets indicated were from China (including Hong Kong) at 37.6% growth and Australia (33.3%). Despite recent Japanese tsunami crisis, the Japanese market remained strong at 18.4% growth.

Domestic tourists recorded the highest number of visitors of 1.99 million or an increase of 17% compared to 2010.