State tourism, culture and environment minister Jafry Ariffin said such efforts were vital to help tourism operators in Sabah get back on their feet as well as to restore confidence in the state’s tourism sector which has been ravaged by Covid-19.
Jafry said his ministry was busy carrying out various new approaches including more strategic promotional initiatives to revive the sector.
This included virtual engagements with the Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (Matta), Sabah Association of Tour and Travel Agents (Satta) and Pacific Asia Travel Association (Pata).
Discussions were also ongoing to aggressively promote Sabah through social media campaigns.
While the rest of the country has opened up borders for interstate travel now, Sabah will only allow movement across state borders at the start of next month.
Chief minister Hajiji Noor said the state made the decision after being satisfied with the vaccination rate for the adult population, which was now at over 70%.
In a statement today, Jafry said the state government has also provided special assistance to tourism players including those operating accommodation facilities.
“Among the help given is the one-off RM2,000 assistance to tourism operators and RM300 to tourist guides, artists, dive masters and mountain porters,” he said.
Jafry said operators of five and four-star hotels and lodgings received RM5,000 while those ranked lower all received a one-off RM2,000 contribution.
“Establishments or groups which have yet to be recognised such as homestay associations and rural tourist guides were also given a one-off RM1,000 assistance,” he said.
Besides these measures, he said his ministry was offering incentives in order to encourage domestic tourism through business trips including meeting, incentive, conference and exhibition (MICE) activities.
“Everyone must recognise that restoring the sector to its previous state before the pandemic is not something easy but tourism players can heave a sigh of relief with the relaxing of rules by the government that allows them to operate,” he said.
Jafry added that 45.5% of tourism operators in the state have managed to keep running until now while 48% have temporarily closed down their businesses following the movement control order last year.