{"id":94,"date":"2020-02-23T04:42:52","date_gmt":"2020-02-23T04:42:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/?p=94"},"modified":"2020-02-23T04:42:57","modified_gmt":"2020-02-23T04:42:57","slug":"time-to-relook-touristic-sites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/?p=94","title":{"rendered":"Time to relook touristic sites"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Liaw (5th right) with the donors who supported the charity dinner<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

KOTA KINABALU:\nInstead of counting the losses and resorting to cost-cutting due to the adverse\neffect from the coronavirus (Covid-19).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sabah\u2019s\ntourism industry should treat this as an opportune time to improve their overall\nservices and cleanliness in the touristic sites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sabah\nAssociation of Tour and Travel Agents (SATTA) chairman Dato\u2019s Seri Winston Liaw\nsaid although the tourism industry is feeling the pinch now, but they should remain\nproactive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLots of\nbusiness establishments such as resorts, hotels, travel agents and other related\nindustry are suffering now as their businesses has gone down by 80 to 90 per\ncent, whilst those more established one had recorded a drop by 50 per cent,\u201d Liaw\nsaid during the SATTA appreciation luncheon on Feb 22, at a restaurant to\nacknowledge the donors who supported the recent Sabah Government initiated fund\nraising charity dinner in aid of Covid-19 victims in China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now that the\nhotel and resort rooms occupancy are very low, for example in Semporna which is\nthe Chinese tourists favourite destination, we should use this trying period to\nrefurbish and upgrade the rooms, he suggested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSince there\nare less tourists coming to the attraction sites, we cannot slow down, instead we\nmust seize this opportunity to clean up all the rubbish that is causing eyesore\nto the environment,\u201d Liaw called.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He cited the popular\nBoracay Island in the Philippines was closed for six months to clean up all the\nrubbish and improve all its facilities despite during the high season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is also time\nfor the employers of travel agents and others to upgrade the quality services\nof their employees through the Human Resources Development Fund, instead of laying\noff the workers, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He cited the\nChina\u2019s government has helped their companies to absorb 20 per cent of their\nexpenditure costs in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the Malaysian\ngovernment is expected to announce a stimulus tourism package next week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other than\nthat, Liaw has disclosed that SATTA has been approached by the local tour\nguides who asked them to help stabilised the pricing rates of the touristic\nsites offered by its operators. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said SATTA\nwill act as a mediator to convey their messages to the relevant tourism\nauthorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, he\nsaid there is a price war among the 12 resort operators in Mantanani Island,\noff the coast of Kota Belud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is also\nan opportune time for operators to revise their tour pricing as there were many\ncases of price undercut among the industry players,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KOTA KINABALU: Instead of counting the losses and resorting to cost-cutting due to the adverse effect from the coronavirus (Covid-19). The Sabah\u2019s tourism industry should treat this as an opportune time to improve their overall services and cleanliness in the touristic sites. The Sabah Association of Tour and Travel Agents (SATTA) chairman Dato\u2019s Seri Winston…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"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-94","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=94"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96,"href":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94\/revisions\/96"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=94"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=94"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/holidaysabah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=94"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}