Christina Liew
KOTA KINABALU (May 11): Sabah recorded a total of 776,845 tourist/visitor arrivals during the first three months of this year.
Disclosing this in a statement today, Minister of Tourism, Culture and Environment Datuk Christina Liew said this encouraging figure marked an increase of 32.8 per cent compared to the same period in 2023 (584,927).
The breakdown is as follows :
a. International tourists/visitors: 321,184 (+93.2%)
b. Domestic tourists/visitors : 455,661 (+8.8%)
c. Total : 776,845 (+32.8%)
“Based on statistics from the Sabah Tourism Board (STB), an estimated tourism receipt of RM1.75 billion (+46.6%) was generated from January to March 2024, which is RM0.56 billion more compared to the same period last year (January-March 2023: RM l.19 billion),” Liew said.
On the sources of international arrivals to Sabah from January to March 2024, the minister revealed that China is the top market source for tourism in Sabah (116,922 tourists/visitors) for now, followed by South Korea (55,936), Brunei (54,266), Singapore (7833) and Europe (18,196).
According to Liew, the top five countries contributing to an increase of 35.8% during the first three months of 2024 were the UK and Ireland, Germany, Netherlands, France, and Russia.