Kota Kinabalu: Deputy Chief Minister-cum-Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister, Tan Sri Chong Kah Kiat said Australian Airlines has decided to discontinue its twice-weekly direct flights from Sydney to Kota Kinabalu effective end of April but it will have minimal impact on tourism flow due to increase in flight frequencies to other destinations.
Australian Airlines has been operating the Sydney-Kota Kinabalu direct flights for almost two years now.
"Of course, they have their own reason and priority (to discontinue it) but we are losing only two out of the 70 international flights per week coming to KKIA.
"There is still plenty of good news, as via Malaysia Airlines we are boosting the Hong KK flight service from six days per week presently to daily basis, in addition to Dragon Air.
"We are also going to increase our direct flights between Shanghai-Kota Kinabalu from present twice per week to thrice-weekly. All these are going to start from April this year," he said.
The three flights per week to Guangzhou are also going to be increased to four times per week, he added, as well as the direct flight to Narita.
Chong said Chief Minister Datuk Seri Musa Aman had personally conveyed a strong message to the Malaysia Airlines to seriously consider taking the opportunity to fly from Sydney, Melbourne and others, to Kota Kinabalu.
"The other good news is that the last two years saw over 60 per cent of outbound Australian tourists who came to Sabah still with the Malaysia AirlinesÉMalaysia Airlines is still bringing in over 60 per cent of the traffic from Australia to Kota Kinabalu.
"So don't think the whole market is going to go down after Australian Airlines ceases operations." Besides, he said, Royal Brunei is also flying to Sydney.
"We already having been receiving tourists from Brisbane via Brunei and expect more to come with RBA's new Sydney-Brunei flight."
Chong said he have no doubt that the Malaysia Airlines would make money by flying out to Australia-Sabah. Last year's percentage of outbound Australian tourists coming to Sabah has been very impressive.
"But again, if you look at the figure of Australian traffic that came into Sabah, 15,920 Australians came to Sabah in 2003 and then increased to 34,464 Australians throughout last year.
Chong said the three traditional destinations of Japan, Korea and Taiwan, the increase in the number of tourists arrival from these countries from year 2003 to last year has been very drastic.
"If we study the statistics, the increase in visitors from these three countries in term of percentage and figures were about 80 to 100 per cent in comparison between 2003 and last year," he added.
Source: Daily Express
No comments:
Post a Comment