Borneo Native Homestay and Tours to intensify promotion

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PENAMPANG: Borneo Native Homestay and Tours (BNHT) will be intensifying its promotion of homestay packages in Sabah.

It is currently focusing on Kampung Tombung in Kiulu where more than 60 houses have been identified to be part of the homestay programme.

“We want to push the homestay business to a higher level and have therefore, signed a contract with the villagers there to set up a Homestay Association,” BNHT managing director Datuk Wilfred Madius Tangau said.

The homestay programme in Kampung Tombung will be combined with other tour packages like white water rafting in Kiulu  and mount  climbing, he said during the launching of BNHT website here recently.

“We are also value adding the package by providing informative tourist guides. Let me stress that we are not merely selling a tour package and accommodation, we are selling the experience of living in a village,” he said.

The visitors will actually participate in the daily activities of their ‘host’ of the homestay such as cooking, cleaning, farming, feeding the animals and even activities like fishing, he added.

According to him, the word ‘homestay’ has been misused because there are bed and breakfast as well as lodging houses which claimed to be homestays.

These establishments are just providing accommodation and meals, not the actual experience of life in a village, he stressed, adding that a homestay means that visitors are actually staying with a family and taking part in their daily routine.

Madius pointed out that  homestay programmes would  make  the villagers   learn to appreciate  the environment more and thus they would become more involved in conserving it.

Information about the homestay packages and tours available  can  be found on BNHT website http://www.borneonativehomestay. com.