{"id":1525,"date":"2022-12-17T12:02:21","date_gmt":"2022-12-17T12:02:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/?p=1525"},"modified":"2022-12-17T12:02:47","modified_gmt":"2022-12-17T12:02:47","slug":"sabah-to-diversify-its-market-to-indian-visitors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/?p=1525","title":{"rendered":"Sabah to diversify its market to Indian visitors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-1 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\"><ul class=\"blocks-gallery-grid\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"140\" src=\"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/IMG-20221208-WA000728129-300x140.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"1564\" class=\"wp-image-1564\" srcset=\"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/IMG-20221208-WA000728129-300x140.jpg 300w, https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/IMG-20221208-WA000728129.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/figure><\/li><\/ul><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>KOTA KINABALU\/Dec 8: Since the Chinese visitors are not returning anytime soon, Sabah has decided to lure the Indian tourists which is now the fastest-growing outbound market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Assistant Tourism, Culture, and Environment Minister Datuk Joniston Bangkuai said the state&#8217;s tourism industry was overly dependent on Chinese visitors before the pandemic and that it must now diversify its customer base.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cSabah is recognised for its nature-based tourism, but we also offer upscale products and one-of-a-kind travel experiences that would be of appeal to visitors from India. They are big spenders, so we want to draw them in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIn fact, over 6,000 Indian visitors came to Sabah pre-pandemic in 2019, showing a clear interest in visiting the region. While the number is modest, it is still quite promising.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cBe assured that the Sabah Tourism Board is actively pursuing the Indian market, and we hope to see a steady increase in arrival in the coming year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI am sure direct linkages between India and Sabah will be established in the future once there is a rise in the number of Indian visitors,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Joniston, who also chairs the Sabah Tourism Board, hosted a dinner for the India Market Tour Agents of the Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (MATTA).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>AsianWorld Holidays Sdn Bhd director George Kandiah led the delegation on their familiarisation trip to Sabah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Also in attendance at the dinner were MATTA president Datuk Tan Kok Liang and representatives from AirAsia, Malaysia Airlines (MAS) and Batik Air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On current flight frequency, Joniston said there are 163 weekly connecting flights between Kuala Lumpur and Kota Kinabalu available via MAS, Air Asia, and Batik Air<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He also mentioned that 3,247 tourists from India had arrived in the state between January and October this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>India\u2019s High Commissioner to Malaysia B. Nagabhushana Reddy paid a courtesy call on Joniston during which they exchanged views on potential cooperation and tourism development, among others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the meeting, Reddy mentioned the need to work with popular destinations because Indians travel widely and in great numbers throughout the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He stated that about 700,000 Indian tourists visited Malaysia in 2019, and the fact that a portion of them flew to Sabah demonstrates that Indian tourists are already making plans to experience the country&#8217;s unique destinations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>KOTA KINABALU\/Dec 8: Since the Chinese visitors are not returning anytime soon, Sabah has decided to lure the Indian tourists which is now the fastest-growing outbound market. Assistant Tourism, Culture, and Environment Minister Datuk Joniston Bangkuai said the state&#8217;s tourism industry was overly dependent on Chinese visitors before the pandemic and that it must now&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1565,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/IMG-20221208-WA000828129.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1525"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1566,"href":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1525\/revisions\/1566"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}