Increasing tourists in Sabah this year

KOTA KINABALU: The arrival of domestic and international visitors to Sabah increased by 0.8 per cent in the first five months of this year.

Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Masidi Manjun said compared to the same period last year, domestic arrivals increased by 14.4 per cent from 565,013 to 646,131.

He added that the January-May preliminary figures also saw the international tourist arrivals going up to 987,660.

The number of Australians and Koreans visiting Sabah went up by 26.7 per cent (from 7,977 to 10,106) and 26.2 per cent (from 29,439 to 37,142), respectively.

There was also an increase of 23.5 per cent in arrivals from China including Hong Kong from 30,257 to 37,310 people while tourists from the United Kingdom and Japan had gone up by 25.2 per cent (from 10,711 to 13,405) and 13.6 percent (from 12,714 to 14,446) respectively.

Tourism, Masidi said contributed 15 per cent to the state’s gross domestic product (GDP) last year “and this year we are targeting 25 per cent”

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