Sabah targets 3.4 million tourists by 2010

KOTA KINABALU: Sabah is targeting to receive 3.03 million tourists next year and 3.4 million by 2010.

Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister, Datuk Masidi Manjun said in his winding up speech at the State Assembly sitting here yesterday that they were also expecting RM5.66 billion in tourism income next year and RM6.37 billion by end of 2010.

In order to achieve this, he said his ministry would enhance cooperation with airline companies operating flights to Sabah.

Air accessibility, he stressed, was important in the development of tourism as more than 96 percent of tourists arrived in Sabah by air.

“Sabah now has 107 international direct flights weekly which link the state to 14 destinations as compared to only 101 flights in 2007,” he said, adding that the seat capacity had also increased from 15,762 to 16,607.

Masidi also said with the open skies policy announced by the federal government recently, his ministry would strive to lure more airlines to operate flights to Sabah.

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