LONDON, Nov 8: Sarawak Tourism Board (STB) unveiled the ‘Visit Sarawak Year’ logo, as a precursor to its official launch in January next year, at an industry event in London on Tuesday (Nov 6).
The Visit Sarawak logo will be the anchor emblem for the Visit Sarawak campaign.
Minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture, Youth and Sports Datuk Abdul Karim Hamzah said the Visit Sarawak campaign was aimed at making the state a preferred tourist destination in Southeast Asia.
“The tagline ‘More to Discover’ underscores Sarawak Tourism Board’s strategy to position the state as a plethora of culture, adventure, nature, food, and festivals (CANFF) that are not found anywhere else in the world and ready to be discovered,” Abdul Karim said in a press statement.
“Last year, we received 33,399 British tourists, as compared to 31,274 in 2016. This is a 6.79 per cent increase, which is a good indicator of gaining interest from travellers from the UK market.”
As of July this year, Sarawak received 19,784 arrivals from the UK, and the state hoped to achieve a 10 per cent growth this year.
Abdul Karim cited the seven-days-six-nights Kuching combined with Mulu packages as a favourite among UK tourists, with Central Sarawak being a rising attraction.
“We will be looking to intensify efforts to increase arrivals from the UK in the coming year while at the same time to increase their length of stay to at least 10 days in Sarawak,” he said.
British tourists can now look forward to more new packages that will provide competitively priced offerings focusing on culture, adventure, nature, food and festivals, he assured.
Sarawak had recorded a total spending of RM8.59 billion from tourism in 2017, which accounted for 7.9 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP).
International arrivals to Sarawak clocked in at 2.6 million last year. Some of the key international markets for Visit Sarawak will be the UK, Germany, the Benelux, China, Australia, and Asean countries. Asean countries were a key source of visitors, which accounted for 48.98 per cent or 2.38 million arrivals last year.
Newly-minted STB chief executive officer Sharzede Salleh Askor said, “Digital will be a large part of our campaign. Besides creating content on digital platforms to reach out to our markets, we are also developing a mobile app that will anchor the discovery process for all our visitors.” — DayakDaily
