KOTA KINABALU: Sabah Association of Tour and Travel Agents (SATTA) chairman Datuk Seri Winston Liaw has suggested a monthly meeting between the state Tourism, Culture and Environment ministry and its agencies as to discuss the market situation and update whatever information they have about the industry.
Liaw said the monthly meeting would prevent any misunderstanding on information about how the state tourism industry was doing.
He said this in reponse to the statement by Assistant Minister of Tourism, Culture and Environment Datuk Pang Yuk Ming who claimed that SATTA had exaggerated the number of China tourists coming to Sabah next year.
Pang claimed that SATTA had made an exaggerated statement which resulted in many hotels getting excited and planned to mark up their room rates next year to take advantage of the situation.
According to Liaw, what he had disclosed was based on the information he received from AirAsia which is operating routes to and from China.
Liaw had said that an estimated 100,000 Chinese tourists would be arriving in Sabah in the first ten months (Jan-Oct) of next year.
“The number was confirmed to me by AirAsia East Malaysia (Sabah & Sarawak) commercial general manager Norhayati Aziz Rashid who paid a sales call at my office recently.
“Norhayati also said the arrival of Chinese tourists from Wuhan to Kota Kinabalu sector was very encouraging where 50 per cent of the available seats has been sold out and 25,000 people have committed or paid upfront,” said Winston.
“I think Datuk Pang has misunderstood my statement because the estimated 100,000 Chinese visitors are not only from the Wuhan-Kota Kinabalu sector handled by AirAsia. But the numbers also include a series of chartered flights to be mounted by Airworld Travel Sdn Bhd (about 10,000 passengers) from Changsha, Nanning and Guiyang and an incentive group (about 20,000 passengers),” he pointed out.
Liaw also disclosed that he had held a meeting with the board of directors of the incentive group in Kuala Lumpur on Friday night.
“They are a listed company in China and our meeting lasted two to three hours to iron out the package that we are going to offer and they had confirmed coming to Sabah.
“And we have asked the quotation from three to four newly opened hotels and it will be unwise for other hotels to take advantage of the situation to increase their rates.
“Instead we should encourage them to reduce their prices even though they make less profit but at least they can sustain their overhead cost to compete with the regional market,” he said.