KUCHING: The Borneo Tourism Alliance e-Community portal that was launched yesterday is expected to give better impact and exposure to products or tourism destinations as it provides easier accessibility besides expanding cooperation between the tourism players.
Speaking during the media conference, Deputy Minister of Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) Datuk Jacob Dungau Sagan stated that this exercise is one of the follow-up programmes under the Tourism Sector Initiative that was established under the Sarawak Economic Transformation Laboratory (or Lab) recently.
“This portal will be able to impact in terms of easier accessibilities and expanding cooperation between the homestay operators, hotels, tour agents, handicraft owners in promoting their services and products.
“It will also help to reduce marketing cost, which was among the proposals submitted in the Sarawak Economic Transformation Lab recently,” he said.
Sagan pointed out that the programme involves all homestay owners in the state as well as the women entrepreneurs group together with the state tourism ministry.
According to him, under the tourism initiative through the lab organised by MITI recently there were eight initiatives that were proposed involving health tourism, education tourism, eco-tourism hub, sports tourism, homestay, cultural and environmental tourism, property tourism and infrastructure.
“Efforts are underway to make sure that these initiatives will be implemented, which involve many parties especially state government, federal, tourism ministry, statutory body, university as well as small and medium enterprises,” Sagan said.
He stated that through the implementation of these eight initiatives, the state is expected to be able to generate income of RM68.3 million with the employment opportunities of 1,500 by the year 2020.