By Ashley Sim
KUCHING, April 24: A Singapore media group led by Sarawak Trade and Tourism Office Singapore (Statos) touched down at Kuching International Airport (KIA) today for a five-day visit to rediscover Sarawak following the reopening of the borders.
The itinerary includes Kuching, Miri, and Sibu.
According to Statos deputy chief executive officer Putrie Rozana Soraya who accompanied the group, Statos is collaborating with Scoot Airlines on marketing campaigns and is aggressively promoting Kuching and Miri to the Singapore market.
“We’re doing a lot of publicity, working with the media, and collaborating with agents on other projects.
“This time round we are going to try different tourism products such as kayaking and cycling.
“I believe these are the new tourism products that we want to highlight to Singaporeans,” she said.
She went on to say that the media group will be in Kuching for five days and four nights.
“This time, we’ll only cover Kuching, but in June, we’ll be collaborating with the Sarawak Tourism Board (STB) to cover the Rainforest World Music Festival (RWMF) as well as the Borneo Jazz Festival (BJF).
“This is the first media trip of the year following the reopening of Sarawak’s borders,” Putrie mentioned.
She also stated that the media group’s visit is a pre-publicity trip with the goal of rediscovering Sarawak, and that a different media group will return to Sarawak in June to cover the RWMF and BJF with STB.
“So, basically, this is a FAM (familiarisation) trip.
“Besides that, we’ve also done our “Eat.Chiak.Makan Kuching Food Trail” brochure.
“They are also here to do food tasting to discover Sarawak’s local food such as Sarawak Laksa, Kolo Mee, and others on their own,” she explained.
Putrie added that for the past two years, the media group have only done shoutouts in Singapore and worked with local Sarawakians in Singapore to produce local dishes, but they didn’t have the opportunity to try the authenticity of the food, so Statos brought them here to try the food.
“Actually, these were our plans for the past two years, but due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we were unable to carry them out.
“However, in Singapore, we have been busy with other marketing plans, working with the media to continue to promote Sarawak despite the closure of the borders, so we are now bringing them over to experience it for themselves,” she said.
Meanwhile, William Tan, a Singapore content creator/influencer who is part of the visiting media group, stated that this is his second visit to Sarawak and that he is excited to try local Sarawak food as well as explore the attractions in Sarawak.
“I’ve heard that this time, we’re going on a cruise to see dolphins, which is something Singaporeans don’t get to see very often, and thus something you can’t experience in Singapore,” he said.
The media group consists of Tan (Singapore travel and lifestyle influencer), Sng Yi Xin and Christopher Peter Chong (Singapore family, travel, and lifestyle influencers), Jay Chua (Singapore travel, sports, and lifestyle influencer), and Huang Yimin (editor at Expat Living Magazine). — DayakDaily
