Friday, March 17, 2006

Bruneians top list of visitors to Sarawak


By Magdalene Rogers

KUCHING - Sarawak's tourism industry got a boost from Brunei - in the neighbouring countries markets - which topped the list of visitors numbering 1,318,782 last year followed by Indonesians totalling 428,570.

Sarawak Tourism Board's (STB) newsletter stated that the state has recorded a total of 2,261,696 foreign visitors' arrival that same year compared to 2,242,516 in 2004, that represents a slight increase of 1.01 per cent.

"For the long-haul markets, visitors from the United Kingdom and Ireland topped the list with 42,383 arrivals and followed by those from countries in Western Europe totalling 22,593," an official said.

Filipinos made up the most number of visitors from the regional market with 97,288 while Singapore came second with 42,659.

"Both Australia and New Zealand have a combined figure of 27,752, followed by China (18,927) and Thailand (17,431)," the official stated.

"On the domestic front, 446,986 arrivals were recorded from Peninsular Malaysia and 314,366 from neighbouring Sabah as compared to 234,208 from Peninsular Malaysia and 175,145 from Sabah in 2004 - a strong indication of a robust domestic growth in Sarawak tourism," she said.

Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin

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