Wednesday, April 13, 2005

Sustainability the keyword for Sabah Tourism's future

Kota Kinabalu: Sustainability is the way to Sabah's future development, including tourism, said Deputy Chief Minister-cum-Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Tan Sri Chong Kah Kiat.

Launching the Borneo Ecotourism Conference, Tuesday, he said all development must be given "sufficient thought" to avoid or prevent short-sighted and expedient development that wasted resources on costly infrastructures which end in failures.

"We are aware of the needs and challenges for sustainable growth of tourism, in particular, ecotourism, especialy in a state like Sabah where its touristic resources are largely nature-based," he told the participants from Australia, US, Japan, Brunei and Peninsular Malaysia, among others. He said the State Government realised that Sabah's fundamental touristic asset encompassed nature and culture resources .

"To generate long term benefits to meet the State's economic and social needs, these resources need to be properly managed and appropriately developed and where necessary, given due protection," he said.

The "challenges" are more than physical development of appropriate products. It is the development of services and skills of high quality and standards to deliver the products to meet the discerning visitor needs and expectations.

Thus, the development plan should include care and protection of the environment, provision for regular maintenance of infrastructure and enable delivery of quality services that not only meet safety requirements and other standards but also to beautify the environs, he said.

"The maintenance culture has to be firmly inculcated so that we do not unduly degrade important nature resources and visitor attractions by carelessness and apathy in littering and undue destruction through simple neglect and ignorance of the negative impacts of our actions such as on coral reefs, wildlife habitats and ecosystems by visitor and provider alike."

From a bigger perspective, he said it would do well for Sabah, Sarawak , Brunei and Kalimantan to remind themselves that they share a series of "spectacular attractions" that had attracted world renowned naturalists and scientists such Sir David Attenborough and Professor David Bellamy and will continue to attract new generations of ecotourists who are recognised as the largest growth segment in the tourism industry today, Chong said.

He cited nature is icons like the Orang-utan, the Sumatran rhino, the Proboscis monkey, Sabah's pygmy elephants, the rain forests of Borneo from Gunung Gading of Sarawak to Sabah's Crocker Range and Maliau Basin, where are found four species of the world's largest flower Rafflesia, to world heritage sites such as Mulu Caves and Mt Kinabalu, which houses thousands of species of wild orchids and diverse unique plants.

Through their sheer richness in biodiversity on land and at sea, Sabah and Sarawak had contributed substantially to the national image of Malaysia as a nature and ecotourism destination.

And on that basis, Sabah have the last few years embarked on various concerted measures to improve air access and invested in vigorous promotions to raise the State's profile to increase tourist arrivals.

The results were 1.77 million arrivals in 2004 , which was a 41.7 per cent increase from 2003. Figures from the first two months of 2005 suggest a similar growth trend through the year.

"The State Government has set a target of 2.7 million visitor arrivals to be achieved for 2007," he said.

"With the immediate expansion of the Kota Kinabalu International Airport which is being carried out over the next few years at a cost of RM1 billion, we are confident of reaching the target," Chong said.

Courtesy of Daily Express

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