9th October 2008 : Sarawak, Sabah For Asking For Open Sky Policy

KUCHING, MALAYSIA: Sarawak and Sabah are expected to submit a joint memorandum to the federal government soon to consider the two states as separate entities for the "open sky policy" in efforts to enhance air connectivity and promote their respective tourist destinations.

State Urban Development and Tourism Minister Datuk Michael Manyin said the decision to collaborate to aggressively promote the two states' tourism industry was discussed when he visited his Sabah counterpart, Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Masidi Manjun in Kota Kinabalu Tuesday (7 Oct).

"Normally the open sky policy is only applicable for state capital to state capital destination but we took the cue from Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who had stated that Sarawak and Sabah should be treated separately in terms of development," he told an AirAsia media briefing here, which was also attended by AirAsia group chief executive officer Datuk Seri Tony Fernandes.

Manyin said he and Masidi agreed to work together on packaging each state's tourism products and destinations, including the Unesco-gazetted heritage sites of Mulu Caves and Mt Kinabalu, as well as indigenous festivals -- the Gawai Dayak in Sarawak and Kaamatan in Sabah.

The two states also proposed that the federal authorities include their tourism events in the national campaign to lure tourists as these were sometimes omitted in the past, he said.

As part of the cooperation in tourism, Manyin said Sarawak and Sabah had agreed to hold its ministerial-level meeting twice yearly.

On another note, he said, his ministry and its relevant agencies needed to work hard to ensure the industry's success, especially as the number of hotel rooms was expected to double by next year from the 5,000 available at present in all the major cities and towns.

He said four million tourist arrivals to Sarawak were projected this year from 3.6 million, including 2.4 million international tourists, in 2007.

Last year's figure was an increase of 23% from 2006, he said.

Following numerous requests from the people and industry's stakeholders, he was also confident that AirAsia would consider flying the Sibu-Singapore sector besides the Miri-Macau route in order to take advantage of the large number of tourists from Brunei visiting the nearby resort city of Miri.

Source