Domestic travel the way forward for Sabah: Masidi

KOTA KINABALU – It is high time for Sabah to focus on domestic tourism as a means of reviving its economy, said the state’s Housing and Local Government Minister Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun.  

Masidi said that while the state had been profiting from international travellers before the pandemic, it could still earn up to RM2 billion annually through domestic tourism.  

“Remember when we allowed hotels to operate during the pandemic? The hotels were 70% full within three days, and they (the tourists) were all Sabahans.  

“I believe Malaysians are better spenders. During the peak of Sabah’s tourism, the state had received 4 million tourists, and 70% or 2.7 million of them were domestic.

“Now that West Malaysians can come here, they come here in big numbers.   

I have made the calculation. If we can achieve 30% of domestic tourists, then that will be 810,000 of them in Sabah, and we could earn about RM2 billion annually. 

“That is a big sum of money,” Masidi said at the Sabah International Business Economic Summit titled “Unlocking Sabah’s Potential, Unleashing Business Opportunities”, held at the Sabah International Convention Centre here today.  

Masidi, who was Sabah tourism, culture and environment minister from 2007 to 2018, also emphasised the importance of developing tourism in the state, saying that 90% to 95% of people working in the tourism sector are locals.

“The sector needs more funds from the government to improve the future.  

We have gone past the process of saving lives. We now have to save the livelihoods of the people,” he said, adding that high-end tourism should be a focal point instead of sheer numbers.

“It is about how much each tourist (from West Malaysia) is going to spend in Sabah,” he said.  

Masidi, who is also Sabah finance minister II, however admitted that money is a problem for the government currently, as hundreds of billions of ringgit had been spent during the pandemic to save lives.  

“It is an open secret that the government was short of money at the time after spending so much during the pandemic. 

“But I think we need to spend the money to spur growth in the industry. We need to revive the economy. It is time to restart, recalibrate and start doing business,” he added.  

Masidi also pointed out that the way forward for Sabah’s economy is to focus on youth skills training in areas such as entrepreneurship and farming.

“Unfortunately, our problem is we cannot force youth to work in a sector that they traditionally do not like, and that sector is going to continue to depend on migrant labourers.  

“However, there are sectors in which our youth can be trained and reskilled – and that is business. 

We need to train them to create a job for themselves. We need to create small-scale businessmen among Sabahans who will look at themselves as job creators rather than job seekers looking to be employed.  

“Many people in the rural areas have done so in small ways, and the government needs to assist them. Give them seed money for youth entrepreneurship, or help them in marketing their products.  

“I know agriculture is not attractive among youth, but if we do it with more advanced technology, it will not seem too gritty. 

“We need to look into new crops and new ways of farming that are considered attractive.” – The Vibes, January 17, 2022