Another book to promote Sabah.

Date: 17 November, 2012

Another book to promote Sabah.

Kota Kinabalu: Books can be a starting point for a particular place because it creates a first impression that triggers impact, according to Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Masidi Manjun. "Books are the first thing that people pick up and it's a starting point of one's interest in a particular place which is very important because first impressions create a lasting impression," he said.

Masidi said this during the launching of a book by Malaysian-based writer David Bowden titled 'Enchanting Borneo's special edition for Sutera Harbour Resort' held at the Pacific Sutera Harbour, here, Friday.

"For us in the tourism industry, this is another chapter in our effort to promote Sabah and obviously when this book is sold overseas that will be the first impression of Sabah or even Borneo," he said. "Hopefully, with this book, more people especially foreigners will want to find where Sabah is because Sabah is a small State and some foreigners may have heard of Borneo but never heard of Sabah," he added.

"As a Sabahan, I am very proud Bowden has taken interest to sell Sabah to the rest of the world," said Masidi on the 80-page book that portrays a kaleidoscope of colours reflecting the diversity of Borneo's lifestyle. "More importantly, I think all of us in Sabah are privileged to be living in what I term as living within the garden of God, and the garden of God is of course obviously Sabah," he added.

Masidi also thanked John Beaufoy of John Beaufoy Publishing for publishing the travel photo book authored by Bowden, which he described as courageous because it could trigger curiosity among those who do not know Sabah. Also present were Sutera Harbour Resort President Datuk Edward Ong and his Chief Executive Officer Frank Liepmann.

On another development, he said the arrival of Europeans in Sabah increased over the last 11 months but there has been a bit of difficulty in the domestic tourism because airlines are offering them cheaper travel out of the country. "In fact, there are offers which are way cheaper than going from Kuala Lumpur to Kota Kinabalu, so most have chosen to go overseas.

But the other reason is because most of the seats from Kuala Lumpur to Kota Kinabalu have been taken over by foreigners who prefer to come over to Sabah for their holidays," he said. He cited the arrival of German travellers, which has gone up by 71 per cent over the last 10 months, with overall European arrivals going up by 41 per cent.

"This is a good indicator for us in Sabah, travellers are more choosy and our strategy to get high yield travellers who are willing to spend, seem to be and appear to be working well but of course you can never beat the Chinese arrivals," he said. "By July the number of Chinese who have arrived in Sabah is somewhat equal to those who arrived during the entire 2011, thus, I believe that before the year is out we should be able to get about 150,000 Chinese travellers in Sabah," he added.

On another note, he said Malaysia Airlines (MAS) would be re-launching the Kota Kinabalu-Perth sector next month. "It is only once a week but I think the fact that they have re-launched the flight is something to celebrate," he said, adding MAS might also re-launch the Tokyo-Kota Kinabalu route soon. I think there is some negotiation on the time of the flights but it's going to be re-launched again soon and of course, so is the new route like Kota Kinabalu-Shanghai and AirAsia's daily flight from Guangzhou to Kota Kinabalu beginning the end of December," he added.

"All this would mean that the industry is going to do well and obviously there are going to be challenges but if there are no challenges there is no reason for us to do better," he said.

Copyright @ 2012 Sabah Publishing House Sdn. Bhd