MIRI: Tourism assets in Sarawak are under-utilised, said Deputy Chief Minister Tan Sri Dr George Chan Hong Nam.
Though the state was endowed with a diversity of tourism attractions, a large part of these remain untapped, he said.
He attributed this to the lack of participation from the private sector in Sarawak.
“A lot of our tourism attractions have not been fully exploited. For example, in Miri Division alone, we have five huge national parks (Mulu, Niah, Lambir, Loagan Bunut and Pulong Tau).
“However, there are no major holiday resorts in these parks, except for one resort in Mulu (Royal Mulu Resort).
“Major corporations in the private sector must play a bigger role in helping the state to develop our tourism assets.
“They should invest more to develop our tourism sites. They should venture into building accommodation and resorts,” he said.
Dr Chan noted that offshore marine parks were another major tourism asset which had not been explored.
“We also have good facilities for sports such as go-kart racing, but this too has not been fully exploited. We must generate interests in these areas if we want to make full use of what we have,” he said.
Dr Chan said the state government was working with the Transport Ministry to resolve problems pertaining to air-linkage between Sarawak and the outside world.
He said hitches in flight connections to several destinations in the state still persistwd despite efforts to overcome them.
“If tourists find it difficult to go to destinations in Sarawak, they will not want to come again.
“They have options to visit other states. This connectivity problem must be resolved,” he said adding a time frame of two months had been set aside to sort out the flight-connection woes.
Source : STAR
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