Friday, May 06, 2016

Sabah Tourism Board welcomes China charter flights, eyes Korea and Japan too


KOTA KINABALU: Sabah Tourism Board (STB) welcomes more charter flight services from other countries to Sabah aside from China, such as Japan and Korea.

STB chairman Datuk Joniston Bangkuai, said he welcomed the signing of a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) between Malaysia Airlines Berhad, New Era of Guangxi Tourism Corporation Nanning Branch and Borneo Airworld Sdn Bhd to mount a series of charter flights from Guiyang, Changsha, Nanjing and Hefei, China to Sabah, saying that such initiative would boost the arrival of tourists from China.

“The 97 charter flights will bring in around 14,000 China tourists to Sabah,” he said after witnessing the signing ceremony here yesterday.

Joniston said the Chinese tourism market has grown tremendously in recent times.

“While we need to strike when the iron is hot, we however cannot put everything into one basket,” Joniston noted.

Hence, Joniston is encouraging similar charter flight agreements to be established with Japan and Korea.

“Tourist arrivals from Korea and Japan is on the increase, such initiative (charter flight) would be most welcomed,” he said.

.
.