Three international hotel brands to operate in Kuching

KUCHING: Three international hotel brands will operate in Kuching to facilitate Sarawak’s growing tourism numbers.

Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts Minister Datuk Seri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah has revealed that the hotels have been recently approved by Premier Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Abang Johari Tun Openg.

He said presently, the number of rooms is sufficient to cater to the number of visitor arrivals but future plans need to take place soon and must be prepared in phases.

“Looking at the rate of promotion and rate of global travellers, we will need to have more rooms and this is where the preparation has got to start because we cannot wait right until the last minute (then) we start building our hotels,” he told the media after launching the Sarawak Tourism Destination Resilience Workshop at Imperial Hotel on today (May 20).

Abdul Karim added that both the Sarawak government and private sector are sensitive to the current increase of tourists and visitor arrivals.

He revealed that one of the three hotels is Ascott Hotel and as for the other two, Abdul Karim was not made aware of the hotel’s names and location.

For the record, Ascott Hotel is under the CapitaLand Investment Limited from Singapore.

Abdul Karim also pointed out that flights are not only increasing in Kuching, but throughout Sarawak, citing an example that direct flights from Sibu to Singapore will soon be available to cater to the tourism surge.

He said that Singapore’s low-cost airline, Scoot, will have a direct flight from Singapore to Sibu next month starting June 5.

He said Sibu will be the gateway to the interior to Kapit, adding that more hotels are coming up in Sibu and Kapit, which will be good for the tourism industry.

Abdul Karim added that he would like to see quality tourists coming into Sarawak who can appreciate Sarawak’s environment and its conservation and preservation initiatives.

“Bigger numbers are good but we don’t want you just for your money and supporting the related industry, we also want those who come in to appreciate what we have been doing down here about environment, conservation and preservation.

“It’s not just about backpackers, backpackers also build up the numbers but we would want tourists apart from backpackers also (we want) quality tourists. Quality tourists  who can appreciate (Sarawak).”