Lee: Sarawak to focus on digital tourism

KUCHING: The Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture will focus on digital tourism to bring the state’s tourism industry to greater height.
Assistant Minister for Tourism Datuk Lee Kim Shin said this after chairing the annual Sarawak Tourism Steering and Co-ordination Committee meeting on behalf of Chief Minister Datuk Amar Abang Johari Tun Openg who is also Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture here yesterday.
“We are getting marketing intelligence to do digital tourism. This is one of our areas of focus because this is the way forward.

“We will conduct seminars specifically on digital tourism. We will nevertheless continue to execute the normal marketing plans,” he said.
Lee added the state would focus on the huge China tourism market where many industry players were using social media ‘Weibo’ to gather information on tourism.
The state received 32,916 tourists from China in 2015 and in 2016, the number was 38,345 visitors, an increase of 16.49 per cent.
China contributed to the biggest increase in visitors’ arrival to the state last year, said Lee.
He said to promote Sarawak tourism in China, China TV-CCTV had done a documentary shooting in Kuching, Sibu and Miri under the arrangement of China’s consulate- general office in Kuching. The documentary had been shown in China.
Another project to expose Sarawak as a tourist destination would be the shooting of an internet movie by a China film company in Miri this month.
“Once the movie ‘Blue Tears’ enters the China internet market, it will create a big wave exposing Sarawak tourism in China. Sarawak is practically unknown in China. We, therefore, have to put in some effort to market Sarawak as a tourist destination in China,” he said.
Lee also urged industry players to be ready to receive big-spending tourists from China whose favourite products were birds’ nest, followed by coffee and dried prawn.
According to Lee, Bruneians made up the biggest tourist arrivals in Sarawak, followed by domestic (Malaysian) visitors and Indonesians in third place.
While working on attracting more tourists from China, the ministry would continue serving the traditional market from Europe and Australia, Lee added.

 * Note: Newspaper cut from The Borneo Post who has the copy right for the above article.

The Link: http://www.theborneopost.com/2017/03/16/lee-sarawak-to-focus-on-digital-tourism/