BAU, July 3: The federal and state Ministry of Tourism are intensifying the efforts to bring the ailing tourism sector in Sarawak affected by Covid-19 pandemic, back to life.
Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture Datuk Seri Nancy Shukri said the state’s tourism industry, like in other states have been hard hit because of Covid-19 pandemic.
She said the efforts being undertaken are to identify unexplored tourism sites and the existing ones to be promoted locally and abroad.
“Due to this Covid-19 pandemic, the tourism industry has been fast affected and is very slow to recover, so for now, we need to work vigorously to bring our local tourism industry back on track.
“And for this, the federal and state Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture are working in line to help our local tourism sector,” Nancy told a press conference today.
Prior to that, she has visited Libiki Bamboo Resort at Jalan Krokong in Bau, accompanied by Assistant Minister of of Tourism, Arts and Culture Datuk Sebastian Ting, Tasik Biru and Serembu assemblymen, Datuk Henry Harry Jinep and Miro Simuh, respectively, Bau district officer Anielia Siam and senior Ministry’s officers from both federal and state.
She also told reporters that there are several assistance provided by her ministry like the Tourism Special Fund, Tourism Infrastructure Fund, among others.
Such assistance, she said was apart from the stimulus package announced by Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yasin.
She said the impact of Covid-19 pandemic has led to many employees in the tourism sector being laid off, thus it was important to help the industry.
Meanwhile, Nancy said she was glad to note that the tourism sector in the state is slowly going back to normal since two weeks ago with some hotels recorded about 75 per cent occupancy rate.
She also lauded the effort taken by both the federal and state governments to curb Covid-19 outbreak.
Having said that, she urged the people to abide with the standard operating procedures (SOP) during the current Recovery Movement Control Order (RMCO) until Aug 31.-DayakDaily
