{"id":1575,"date":"2022-12-20T06:30:17","date_gmt":"2022-12-20T06:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/2022\/12\/20\/rural-tourism-operators-told-to-transform-to-lure-long-and-high-spending-visitors\/"},"modified":"2022-12-20T06:30:17","modified_gmt":"2022-12-20T06:30:17","slug":"rural-tourism-operators-told-to-transform-to-lure-long-and-high-spending-visitors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/?p=1575","title":{"rendered":"Rural tourism operators told to transform to lure long and high spending visitors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery aligncenter 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=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/20221211_111741-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"1572\" class=\"wp-image-1572\" srcset=\"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/20221211_111741-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/20221211_111741-768x513.jpg 768w, https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/20221211_111741.jpg 893w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/figure><\/li><\/ul><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">KOTA KINABALU\/Dec11: Rural tourism operators need to be committed in transforming their tourist sites to draw long-stay and high-spending visitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Assistant Minister of Tourism, Culture and Environment Datuk Joniston Bangkuai said that their efforts and involvement need to be in line with the Sabah Tourism Board&#8217;s and the Federation of Rural Tourism Association Sabah&#8217;s strategic plan of making Sabah a world-class rural tourism destination by 2030.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;In some countries like China, tourists are willing to fork out more money to discover and experience off-the-beaten areas, where nature is at its most breathtaking. We have to emulate this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;The Sabah Maju Jaya development plan places a strong emphasis on tourism, thus we must position ourselves as a renowned rural tourism destination with first-rate facilities that are prepared to host curious visitors and entice them to stay longer,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Joniston, who is also chairman of the Sabah Tourism Board, said rural tourism players have a responsibility to improve the appeal of their communities and make extra efforts to meet the 2030 strategic plan&#8217;s objectives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery aligncenter columns-1 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-2 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=\"1024\" height=\"531\" src=\"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/20221211_115258-1024x531.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"1573\" class=\"wp-image-1573\" srcset=\"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/20221211_115258-1024x531.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/20221211_115258-300x156.jpg 300w, https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/20221211_115258-768x398.jpg 768w, https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/20221211_115258.jpg 1298w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure><\/li><\/ul><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This entails the need for operators as well as rural communities to exercise creativity and go beyond just creating sub-par tourist attractions, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;We need to shift toward capitalising on our strengths by offering high-end travel experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;The Sabah Tourism Board and the state government will continue to assess the needs and determine how best we can work together to achieve the world-class goal,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Joniston also launched the opening of the eco-tourism open hall at Kampung Malangang Lama in Kiulu, which, along with Kadamaian in Kota Belud, serves as the model for rural tourism in Sabah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, Kiulu tourism operators&#8217; total revenue was more than RM5 million, with white water rafting as the primary attraction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While Kadamaian tourism operators generated over RM2.5 million, indicating there is significant untapped potential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>KOTA KINABALU\/Dec11: Rural tourism operators need to be committed in transforming their tourist sites to draw long-stay and high-spending visitors. Assistant Minister of Tourism, Culture and Environment Datuk Joniston Bangkuai said that their efforts and involvement need to be in line with the Sabah Tourism Board&#8217;s and the Federation of Rural Tourism Association Sabah&#8217;s strategic&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1574,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1575","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\/20221211_115452.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1575","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=1575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}