TOURISM Board CEO Sheikh Jamaluddin Sheikh Mohamed yesterday supported a call by his Sarawak counterpart for tourism industry players in Sabah, Sarawak and Brunei to join forces to attract more tourists.
“In the modern business world, it is important to have a strategic alliance in every industry, including tourism,” Sheikh Jamaluddin told The Brunei Times.
The tourism chief’s comments followed a report citing Sarawak Tourism and Heritage Minister Tan Sri Dr George Chan calling for tourism players in Sarawak to collaborate with their counterparts in Sabah and Brunei to attract more visitors.
In the article, Dr Chan reportedly said that Sabah, Sarawak and Brunei would perform better in tourism if they worked together to promote Borneo as a destination.
“I believe Brunei also will not be able to stand alone to promote its tourism industry, so cooperation would be good for all the three entities,” reportedly said Dr Chan when chairing a meeting of the Tourism Task Groups (TTGs) for the Miri, Bintulu and Limbang Divisions at the Miri City Council office.
He said there was also a need for the TTGs to be revamped in order to bring more representatives from the private sector to plan the right tourism products.
“I want the actual (tourism industry) players in and the government agencies should take the role of facilitating the cooperation,” the article reported Dr Chan saying.
According to the report, Sarawak Assistant Minister of Tourism and Heritage Datuk Talib Zulpilip said that industry players could move forward through goodwill tourism involving people in the two Malaysian states and Brunei.
Datuk Talib felt that Sarawak’s tourist agencies based in Limbang and Miri should be able to start off the goodwill tourism programme, due to their proximity to Brunei, the report added.
However, Sheikh Jamaluddin told The Brunei Times that Brunei had been working to promote Borneo packages since about 1997. On three different occasions, Brunei has promoted Borneo packages together in joint promotions with the other two states, he said.
“On the last occasion, Brunei, Sabah, Sarawak and even Labuan worked together to promote the Borneo travel package,” he said.
Sheikh Jamaluddin added that Brunei always took Sabah and Sarawak “to our hearts” when conducting joint travel promotions. “Although each of us (Sabah, Sarawak and Brunei) might have our own strategies in promoting the packages, we still work together,” he said.
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