By Peter Sibon
KUCHING, July 13: Although Kuching City has been sprucing up itself to become a sustainable tourism destination, there are still pockets of areas that need urgent attention.
One such area is the Carpenter Street where most of the drains remained uncovered and the whole area is poorly lit at night.
“It’s high time that the whole of Carpenter Street has proper drainage system to ensure safety to visitors. Additionally, we also requested that Carpenter Street is properly lit at night,” Kuching Old Market Community Association (KOMCA) chairman Kapitan Lim Chuan Chan told DayakDaily here today.
He reiterated that Carpenter Street, which is located adjacent to the renowned Kuching Waterfront, has been used as the venue of the Kuching annual Intercultural Mooncake Festival.
“As such, we hoped that the Ministry of Tourism, Art and Culture will assist in providing the necessary amenities so that we can have a sustainable tourism industry in our city,” he said.
Besides that, KOMCA is also collaborating with various NGOs to promote Kuching Main Bazaar area as one of the heritage walks in the country such as in Penang’s Georgetown, Melaka’s Jonkar Walk and Singapore’s China Town.
“That’s why we come up with various activities to promote Kuching Old Bazaar area which consisted of Carpenter Street and its surrounding area,” said Lim.
Lim added that his committee also proposed the setting up of Kuching Old Bazaar Tourism Area (KOBaTo), Creative Heritage Week @ Upper China Street; KOBaTo Youth Heritage Community Programs and “Old Bazaar On Sales” Campaigns, KOBaTo Visitor Gallery, Street Story Arts Presentation and KOBaTo Heritage Treasure Hunt.
Presently, there are some 200 shophouses in the Kuching Main Bazaar area.
Meanwhile, Lim revealed that the annual Kuching Intercultural Mooncake Festival for this year which is scheduled in October has been cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. —DayakDaily.
