A few days ago I read one statement from the Brunei Tourism Development Department Director from the local paper.
“Mass tourism is not our target”
I could not give you the link to this news as for some reason, I could not find it anywhere online. The strangest thing is, while you could google the phrase, none of the search result will give you the actual article. It’s as if it has been deleted - try it and let me know if you found the article.
But this statement struck me as even common sense would tell anyone that those establishments which have had to spent tons of money to keep themselves afloat - with hotels occupancy rates averaging at only 50% in 2007 - could not be very happy to be told that having too many tourists are not in the country’s interest.
It’s also not helping when only B$1 mil is allocated to tourism development!
To give you some idea of how much (or how little) that is, last year some B$50 mil were allocated to re-surface roads which could not be more than 50km in distance. In short, B$1 mil = re-surface 1km of road.
What hope does our tourism industry have then?
On a lighter note, ONE of the result of having a bigger tourism budget (Sabah allocated RM12 mils for 2008) is that we get spectacular cultural showcase which impresses not only foreign travellers who are lucky to be in Sabah right now.
But which pleases even Sabahan such as myself who wish that I could be home to witness the myriad of sounds and colours that Sabah Fest always brings.
One of the performance at the Sabah Fest Cultural Show (Image by Caneeliea)
Courtesy of my sister who attended the Sabah Fest Cultural Show at the Magellan Sutera Hotel, here are more pictures of the colourful extravaganza - Part 2 & Part 3.
The only thing missing is the music and having attended such shows before, I can assure you that these are the kind of shows which you cannot miss if you are in Sabah.