About 90% of tourist influx arrives in Sabah
via plane. This illustrates that connectivity
is important to keep a continuous flow of
tourists coming into the state.
He added Kota Kinabalu was listed
as “Top 10 Rising Asian Destinations”
by TripAdvisor, following consistent
positive feedback from visitors every
year.
Lack of Tourism Properties
However, lack of five-star hotels
around Kota Kinabalu reduced
tourist arrivals from Europe by 4.7
%. At least 2,000 more hotel rooms
were needed in Kota Kinabalu to
accommodate influx of tourists.
Sabah especially lacks in fourstar and five-star hotels to cater
to tourists, especially those
from China and Hong Kong who
preferred to stay in these types
of hotels. The state is constantly
faced with shortages of rooms to
accommodate such tourists.
Masidi said, “During peak season of
the tourism calendar, we always find
ourselves lacking in this area. We
have lots of three star hotels and
they are doing well. We hope they
would continue doing well, but we
also need four and five star hotels.”
Currently, Sabah only has five fivestar resorts and developers wanting
to venture into leisure properties
are finding it difficult to finance
such projects because Bank Negara
Malaysia does not encourage
commercial banks to approve loans
for developers or investors wanting
to build hotels as the investments as
high-risk ventures.
Development Corridor for tourism
development known as ‘Kinabalu
Gold Coast.’ If we can continue
developing leisure properties and
make Sabah a tourism hub in South
East Asia, we will excel and soon
take over Bali or Langkawi,” Goh
said.
According to SHAREDA President
Francis Goh, “Resorts here are built
on land no less than 300 to 700
acres and more developers should
be encourage to venture into leisure
properties development to cater to
the growing number of tourists.”
However, with the tourism growth
in Sabah, our local businesses also
have to work harder and step up
their game in terms of providing the
highest quality service and living up
to the name that the state carries.
Leisure properties included beach
villas, lagoon villas, riverside villas,
paddy villas, farm villas, hilltop villas,
cliff villas, forest lodge, chalets,
service suits, service apartment and
hotel suites.
“The Sabah government has a vision
to turn stretches of long white sandy
beaches along the west coast up
to Tip of Borneo under the Sabah
Increase of Quality
“We can give tourists a good place to
stay but without hospitality, it means
nothing and they will leave with a
bad taste in their mouth. In line with
the theme of this event ‘People love
to travel. People love food. People
love quality service’, I hope we can
provide good hospitality services to
our guests because if they enjoyed
their stay here, they could become
our little ambassadors,” Masidi said.
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