By Nur Ashikin Louis
KUCHING, June 19: Covid-19 restrictions in some foreign countries have been a major deterrent for people to travel and thus contributing to fewer festival goers at this year’s Rainforest World Music Festival (RWMF).
Federal Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Dato Sri Nancy Shukri said based on her observation, this year’s festival was not as crowded as before.
“Because some countries still implement quarantine procedures (for overseas arrivals), they may be allowed to come in but when they go back, they are still (subjected to) quarantine.
“That is why some of them (tourists) refuse and are reluctant to travel. But I believe [tourist arrivals] will be picking up soon,” she told reporters at the RWMF venue in Sarawak Cultural Village (SCV) earlier today.
Nancy who is also the Batang Sadong MP further said that she wanted to hear international tourists’ feedback on RWMF as it is part of her ministry’s efforts in monitoring potential local tourism products to be promoted to the world.
“Right now, I’m going overseas a lot to promote Malaysia including RWMF. Every time I go overseas, RWMF will be the main question by those overseas whether the festival will take place or not,” she added.
She also said that Malaysia Airlines (MAS) has plans to increase its flights to London to 14 flights a week by July 2022.
“Right now, it is just two flights a week. So the timing was just not right with RWMF,” she said.
She also revealed that MAS has two flights to Qatar a week. — DayakDaily
