SMC: BCF must resonate with travel agents

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Dancers in action in last year’s BCF at Sibu Town Square Phase 1.

Dancers in action in last year’s BCF at Sibu Town Square Phase 1.

SIBU: Travel operators from Peninsular Malaysia and overseas have been invited for a familiarisation trip here during the Borneo Cultural Festival (BCF) as an effort to elevate the event to a higher level.

Sibu Municipal Council (SMC) deputy chairman Dato Andrew Wong, who disclosed this, said most of the operators are from the Peninsula while one or two are from China.

“At the moment, we are still targeting visitors within Sarawak.

“However, for this year, we have invited a lot of travel operators from outside Sarawak to visit us, in what we call a familiarisation visit during the BCF.

“We are working in collaboration with Sibu Travel Operators Association.

“The move is for us to better promote Sibu and BCF in future,” Wong, who is BCF organising chairman, told The Borneo Post.

He was asked if there were plans to promote BCF to the international arena.

Towards this end, Wong reckoned Visit Sibu Year 2016 would be the flag-off for BCF to be launched into the international stage.

“We have to do promotion for BCF before we can actually launch it onto another level. So, this is what I call the transition period,” he said.

BCF, into its 12th year, will kick off on July 30 and ends on Aug 8.

It goes by the same theme as last year – ‘Beauty in Ethnic Diversity’.

The major event will begin with a parade at 6.30pm at Chuang Corridor on July 30.

Various activities have been drawn up for the four stages, namely the Chinese stage, Malay/Melanau stage, Youth Pavillion and Dayak stage.

The main stage will only be used on the final three nights with activities to include performances by local troupes such as Ethnic dance, modern children dance, zumba fitness dance, modern dance and Chinese martial arts.

Meanwhile, the council calls for cooperation from the public when parking their vehicles in the vicinity of the town square.