Sabah’s tourism on the road to recovery

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Norzuwana (left) and Ananda (right) signing the MoA.

KOTA KINABALU (Dec 8) : Sabah’s tourism is on the road to recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic, said Sabah Tourism Board Deputy Chief Executive Officer (Finance and Corporate) Julinus Jeffery Jimit.

He said Community-Based Tourism here is thriving and growing as airlines have resumed their international routes into Sabah, as from December 5 this year to January 2023, the State is expected to have 24 additional flights per week from Taipei, Narita, Busan and Hong Kong.

“This will add 52 per cent to the current international seat capacity. The recently launched MYAirline has also chosen Kota Kinabalu International Airport as one of its main ports of entry.

“What we need to do from this point on is to keep revitalising tourism and build on our resilience to ensure sustainability,” he said during the 6th International Hospitality and Tourism Conference (IHTC) at the Sabah International Conference Center (SICC) here on Thursday.

The three-day conference, themed “Revitalising ASEAN Tourism: Building Sustainable Resilience” focuses on a broad range of topics related to Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) hospitality, tourism and gastronomy management realm.

This year’s conference features panel sessions and keynote speakers from various ministries and industry players such as from the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Environment, Tourism Malaysia and Sabah Park.

At the same time, IHTC 2022 also celebrates International Mountain Day which falls on December 12, and it is the only programme to be listed in the United Nations World Tourism Organization website for the celebration.

The annual celebration, themed “Women Move Mountains” for this year, aims to create awareness on the importance of mountains to life, to highlight the opportunities and constraints in mountain development, and to build alliances that will bring positive change to mountain peoples and environments around the world.

In addition to the aforementioned celebration, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and two Memorandums of Agreement (MoA) were also signed in conjunction with the conference, in which the MoU involved Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Sabah and SICC.

Both parties involved in the MoU will be cooperating to create more trained manpower to supply the industry, which includes sharing facility services as well as involving UiTM students majoring in Hotel and Tourism Management to undergo industrial training with SICC.

Representing UiTM Sabah for the MoU signing was its rector, Datuk Dr Hj Abdul Kadir Hj Rosline, and Faculty of Hotel and Tourism Management head Dr Tania Maria Tangit, while SICC was represented by D’Heritage company secretary Jocelyn Chong Fung Ken and D’Heritage board of director Douglas J. Joinol.

The MoA, on the other hand, was between UiTM Puncak Alam Selangor Branch and Universitas Brawijaya involving the Faculty of Economics and Business, and Faculty of Administrative Science.

The MoA is an international cooperation which includes staff exchange between faculties from each partner institution, student’s mobility programme, organizing conferences, short courses and exchange of information regarding developments in education, student development and research activities.

Universitas Brawijaya was represented by Assoc Prof Dr Ananda Sabil Hussein from the Faculty of Economics and Business, and Assoc Prof Dr Mohammad Iqbal from the Faculty of Administrative Science.

Meanwhile, UiTM Puncak Alam was represented by its FPHP Faculty Dean Associate Prof Dr Norzuwana Sumarjan and FPHP Faculty Deputy Dean Assoc Prof Dr Mohd Hafiz Mohd Hafiz Hanafiah.

According to Hafiz, a team of around 20 delegates from Universitas Brawijaya will conduct a learning visit to the Mari-Mari Cultural Village as they view the location as a possible benchmark for a cultural heritage site.

He said the team was instructed by the Indonesian Ministry of Education to come to Sabah to learn from the aspects of tourism and hospitality with a focus on Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET).

Hafiz reckons that the initiative will not only give the opportunity for the neighbouring country to observe and learn from what Sabah has to offer, but also vice versa, and hopes that the relationship can be maintained.

Also present were Sabah Parks deputy director Ludi Apin and Tourism Malaysia senior director (Domestics and Events Division) Iskandar Mirza Mohd Yusof.