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Sarawak Sees Breezing Start at ITB Berlin

Sarawak Sees Breezing Start at ITB Berlin

Berlin, Germany; Wed: TheInternationale Tourismus-Börse (ITB) Berlin opened its doors at Messe Berlin yesterday to more than 10,000 exhibitors from 185 countries.

Sarawak Tourism Board (STB) participated in this world’s largest travel show with an 18-member strong delegation headed by the Minister for Tourism, Arts, Culture, Youth and Sports, Datuk Haji Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah together with three Kuching-based travel partners.

The first day of the fair’s opening saw the packed programme for the Minister and his Assistant, Datuk Lee Kim Shin with trade business partners taking turns for the schedule meeting sessions and media interviews by Berlin based FVW Medien travel trade magazine, Reise Aktuell, Vienna based international travel magazine and the Radio xy UG station.

During these meetings, a variety of topics were covered including talks on airline connectivity, promoting current events and creating new events in Sarawak, as well as, promising an encoring interest from ITB Berlin in the future.

STB’s first day business engagements showed promising outcome with leading Amsterdam based De Jong Tours and Switzerland Asien Direkt GmbH showed  renewed interest in Sarawak.

Tomorrow’s line-up of programme for Datuk Karim includes the signing of Memorandum of Understanding on joint marketing programme in Germany between STB and Tischler Reisen GmbH and also the launching of the marketing campaign for the State’s new tourism destination, Sibu and Central Sarawak.

ITB Berlin is expecting more than 160,000 visitors attending the five-day fair   which is reputed to be the world’s biggest and leading travel trade show.

Picture shows FVW Median’s editor, Christine Engelhardt (left) interviewing Datuk Karim Rahman Hamzah. Seen from right, the Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Tourism, Arts, Culture Youth and Sports, Hii Chang Kee, STB Chief Executive Officer, Sharzede Datu Salleh Askor and Datuk Lee Kim Shin.

 

Updated: 6 March 2019

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Malaysia Travel Guide

UK to be Key Market for Sarawak Tourism Board’s Promotional Activities

UK to be Key Market for Sarawak Tourism Board’s Promotional Activities

Sarawak Tourism Board unveiled the Visit Sarawak Year logo yesterday on November 7, 2018, as a precursor to its official launch in January 2019 at an industry event held in London today.

The Visit Sarawak logo will be the anchor emblem for the Visit Sarawak campaign.

Sarawak Minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture, Youth and Sports, Datuk Haji Abdul Karim Hamzah said that the Visit Sarawak campaign is envisioned to place Sarawak on the tourism map as one of the preferred tourism destinations in Southeast Asia.

“The tagline, “More to Discover” underscores Sarawak Tourism Board’s strategy to position the state as a plethora of culture, adventure, nature, food, and festivals (CANFF) offerings that are not found anywhere else in the world, and ready to be discovered,” he said.

“Last year, we received 33,399 more British tourists as compared to 31,274 in 2016 a 6.79% increase which is a good indicator of gaining interest from travellers from the UK market”.

As of July this year, Sarawak received 19,784 arrivals from the UK and with the hope to reach a 10% growth this year.

He cited that the seven days Kuching combine with Mulu packages which are favoured by tourists from the UK with Central Sarawak being a rising attraction.

“We will be looking to intensify efforts to increase arrivals from the UK in the coming year while at the same time to increase their length of stay to at least 10 days in Sarawak”.

British tourists can now look forward to more new packages that will provide competitively priced offerings focusing on culture, adventure, nature, food and festivals, he added.

Sarawak had recorded a total spending of RM8.59 billion from tourism in 2017, which accounted for 7.9% of its gross domestic product (GDP).

International arrivals to Sarawak clocked in at 2.6 million last year. Some of the key international markets for Visit Sarawak will be UK, Germany, the Benelux, China, Australia, and ASEAN countries. ASEAN countries were a key source of visitors, which accounted for 48.98% or 2.38 million arrivals in 2017.

The newly-minted Sarawak Tourism Board CEO, Askor said, “Digital will be a large part of our campaign. Besides creating content on digital platforms to reach out to our markets, we are also developing a mobile app which will anchor the discovery process for all our visitors.”

Sarawak Tourism Board’s new logo multi-coloured logo spells out “Sarawak” with the tagline, “More to discover” to represent the aspirations of the campaign.

Comprising seven colours, in curled script, the red and yellow colours represent the state flag while orange represents the strong spirit and vibrant energy of the different ethnic communities within Sarawak, which is quintessential to Sarawak’s diverse tourism proposition. Green is used to represent the verdant rainforests abundant with wildlife and blue is used to represent the calmness of the ocean along Sarawak’s long coastline.

The uniqueness of the logo is augmented by the hornbill, which replaces the letter “A,” representing Sarawak’s moniker, “Bumi Kenyalang,” or “Land of the Hornbills” that the State has been known for many years, which is also an important symbol of luck to the indigenous people of Sarawak.

Sharzede Datu Salleh Askor (second left) at the prize presentation to the grand prize lucky draw winner that night, Jayne Byott (centre), Corporate Events Manager of J.M.B. Associates, United Kingdom. Also present at the occasion are Tuan Haji Ibrahim Noordin, STB Board of Director (second right), Richard De Villa, Marketing Manager UK Europe, Malaysia Airlines (right) and Rosmarie Wong of The Ranee Boutique (left).

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