Some 54, 266 travellers from Brunei Darussalam visited the neighbouring Malaysia state of Sabah in the first three months of this year, Sabah Tourism Board (STB) statistics revealed.
There has been a 31-per-cent increase in the number of visitors from the Sultanate compared to the same period last year, which stood at 41,412 travellers.
Throughout last year, 266,981 visitors from Brunei Darussalam visited Sabah.
With the construction of the Sultan Haji Omar ‘Ali Saifuddien Bridge linking Brunei-Muara District and Temburong District, the journey to the ‘Land Below the Wind’ has shortened to 4.5 hours during normal days and can be stretched up to 10 hours during school holidays.
Bruneians are lured by shopping outlets, sceneries, fruit stalls and seafood eateries in Kota Kinabalu, Kundasang, Sindumin and Lawas as well as the favourable exchange rate, which hovers around MYR3.47 to BND1.
Malaysian media reported that Sabah recorded 776,845 visitor arrivals during the first three months of this year.
“This encouraging figure marked an increase of 32.8 per cent compared to the same period in 2023 (584,927),” said Sabah’s Minister of Tourism, Culture and Environment Datuk Christina Liew in a statement on Saturday.
“Based on statistics from the STB, an estimated tourism receipt of MYR1.75 billion (+46.6 per cent) was generated from January to March 2024, which is MYR0.56 billion more compared to the same period last year (January-March 2023: MYR1.19 billion),” Liew said.
On the sources of international arrivals to Sabah from January to March 2024, the minister revealed China is the top market source for tourism in Sabah (116,922 tourists/visitors), followed by South Korea (55,936), Brunei (54,266), Singapore (7,833) and Europe (18,196).
According to Liew, the top five countries contributing to an increase of 35.8 per cent during the first three months of 2024 were the United Kingdom and Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands, France and Russia. – Azlan Othman
