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Raymond Tombung
A businessman has accused the Tourism Ministry of exaggerating the numbers of tourist arrivals in Sabah.
KOTA KINABALU: The Tourism Ministry’s projection of 3.7 million expected tourist arrivals in Sabah this year is ‘very misleading and highly exaggerated’, claims a businessman involved in the Sabah tourism industry.
Tham Yau Kong, the proprietor of an inbound tour company in Sabah, said that the figures were unrealistic.
“If 3.7 million tourists arrive in Sabah in one year, that means 308,000 arrive every month, or 10,277 everyday. There is no such thing! In fact it’s quite impossible!” Tham told FMT.
Asked how the government had come up with such figures, Tham said that the Tourism Ministry had recorded the number of people leaving and re-entering Sabah within one month.
He said many of these ‘tourists’ were immigrants, who used the sea ports in the east coast and traveled into and out of Sabah many times a month doing all sorts of businesses in Indonesia and the Philippines.
“If an immigrant goes out and returns 10 times in a month, he is recorded as 10 tourist arrivals.. And there are hundreds of them doing this all the time,” he said.
Tham said there was also the instances of foreigners literally living in Sabah on tourist visas.
“We must also understand that there is high traffic of foreigners on visit passes who have to leave the state every few months, and they simply make the short trip to Brunei to get their passports chopped (stamped) and come back immediately.
“These too are wrongly counted as tourists,” said Tham.
He also cited the cases of visiting Peninsular Malaysians and Sarawakians who are required to fill up arrival forms.
He said such visitors arrived and returned from Sabah several times per month and they too were counted repeatedly as different tourists.
“The real tourists come to Sabah normally during the tourist season which is from April to October,” he explained.
“And it is during this season that we hear of Kota Kinabalu not having enough hotel rooms. But for the rest of the year many hotels in fact face low occupancy problem.”
He said a more realistic figure would be about 40 percent less than that given by the state government.
The ministry must find a more accurate way of garthering their data on "real" tourists arrivals lest the whole tourism industry will be poorly managed
ReplyDeleteDo not rely on the information given only. Must do some research or monitoring to see the real situation.
ReplyDeleteThe figures may be a little bit unrealistic.Be positive, who knows we can get more tourist this year? may be we can get 50% of it instead of 40% ?
ReplyDeleteWe have to promote Sabah.
Apa yang penting ialah kita harus bantu kerajaan mempromosikan Sabah supaya industri pelancongan di negeri ini akan terus meningkat.
DeleteFigure tu cuma andaian penulis bukan ada statistic yang betul dan boleh dipercayai, sekarang pembangkang pun mahu putar belit industri pelancongan. Kerajaan berusaha untuk menarik lebih ramai pelancong ke Sabah, menaik tarafkan kemudahan dan infrastruktur. Industri pelancongan membawa keuntangan kepada Sabah sebab tu semua tu dinaiktarafkan. Promosi berterusan untuk promote Sabah. Buat apa buat business kalau tidak untung.
ReplyDeletePerkara ini sepatutnya tidak di jadikan isu. Industri pelancongan memberi pulangan yang baik kepada ekonomi Negeri Sabah.
DeleteThe exaggerated figure was manipulate by UMNO to cheat the people. This has shown how desperate of UMNO to cover their incompetency and failure to attract tourists to Sabah.
ReplyDeleteMaybe those UMNO's pet Illegal Immigrants coming in and out from Nunukan and Tawi-tawi UMNO also consider them as tourists.
A SABAH tourism industry player, Tham Yau Kong, apologizes to the Sabah Tourism Board (STB) for causing misunderstanding arising from his remark with regard to the statistics on tourist arrivals in Sabah.
ReplyDeleteA few days ago Tham, an inbound tour operator here, said that the figure was not accurate and could be exaggerated due to inaccurate data collection.
DeleteHowever, after consultation with the STB he now understands that he had misquoted the figures. “Actually, the STB statistics are more accurate than I thought, and the detailed breakdown of tourist arrivals are available in sabahtourim.com,” he admitted. “It is also not my intention to look down on the good efforts of the STB in promoting tourism in Sabah.”
Delete“I look forward to better co-operation with STB and the state authorities to continue promoting Sabah as a prime world destination,” he added.
ReplyDeleteSabah adalah destinasi pelancongan yg amat menarik, sabah tahun jumlah pelancong semakin meningkat, ia pasti akan terus meningkat.
ReplyDeletekerajaan perlu ada kaedah yang sistematik dalam mengira jmlah pelancong dtg ke Sabah setiap tahun.
ReplyDeleteBetul tu. Ia penting bagi mengelakkan kesilapan ataupun pertikaian amaun yang diberikan berlaku.
DeletePelancongan di sabah semakin baik, ramai pelancong yang datang melawat ke Sabah.
ReplyDeleteJangan pula isu ini di politikkn pula.
ReplyDeleteSabah telah terkenal di seluruh dunia, ramai pelancongan yang datang setiap hari.
DeleteBikin malu kalau ini. hahahhahaa.
ReplyDeleteSaya nampak ramai pun pelancong di Sabah... Vut since saya bukan kerja dengan tourism so saya sendiri pun tak tahu amaun yang diberi oleh kerajaan itu betul atau sebaliknya.
ReplyDeleteTapi tak mengapa, hal ini masih boleh diperjelaskan. Jangan terus membuat kesimpulan yang berat sebelah.
ReplyDeleteKerajaan tidak akan menipu kerana saya tidak lihat apa2 sebab mengapa mereka hendak menipu....Seharusnya kita bersyukur kerana ramai pelancong yang ingin berkunjung ke Sabah.
ReplyDeleteSememengnya ramai yang berkunjung ke Sabah sejak kebelakangan ini. Selain memberi manfaat kepada sektor perlancogang di sabah ianya juga dapat memberi kejutan kepada sektor ekonomi.
ReplyDeleteYakin lah bahawa pertambahan kedatangan pelancong dapat memberi menaikkan imej kita di persada antrabangsa. Sokonglah sektor perlancongan kita.
ReplyDeleteTidak mustahil yang 3.7juta kehadiran pelancong pada tahun ini. Jika pengurusan dan promosi Sabah berjaya pasti akan mendapat lebih dari apa yang dijangkakan.
ReplyDeleteSedangkan pada tahun lalu saja pelancong datang ke Sabah dalam lingkungan 2.5juta. Maka tidak mustahil kalau teruskan usaha akan dapat mencapai pada sasaran 3.7juta.
ReplyDeleteApa masalah jika kita mensasarkan sesuatu itu lebih dari yang lepas. Ini adalah satu usaha menarik keyakinan untuk memastikan kejayaan.
ReplyDeleteteruskan lagi membuka banyak tempat yang menarik tanpa menganggu keindahan alam sekitar kita. Kerana tarikkan utama sabah adalah keindahan semulajadi.
ReplyDeletePercaya atau tidak itulah yang sebenarnya. Mungkin pihak yang bertanggungjawab dalam perlancongan perlu meneruskan lagi usaha mereka dalam industri ini.
ReplyDeleteno need for them to come 10 thousand everyday la.. don't wasting your time to bring such lame issue.. if you concern about this, you should help the tourism ministry to attract more tourists..
ReplyDelete