KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Environment will meet with AirAsia to try to find out why five direct international flights to Sabah have been suspended.
Minister Datuk Seri Christina Liew said AirAsia’s top management would brief her in two days.
“I prefer to hear it from them firsthand and the reasons behind the cancellations,” she said during an engagement session with Sabah tourism stakeholders at a hotel in town.
The routes affected are direct flights from Kunming, Ningbo, Wuhan, Manado, and Kaohsiung.
Asking whether this would hinder Sabah’s projection of 3.5 million tourists for the year, Liew waved it off as rumor.
“Between January and October last year, we had 410,046 Chinese tourists among a total of over two million arrivals. Our target remains 3.5 million, and we are committed to it,” she said.
Liew again emphasized the necessity of diversifying Sabah’s tourist markets.
“I’d like to see more tourists, which is why we are going into new markets aggressively. If we can capture all 10 ASEAN countries, we should be able to meet our target.”
She also identified the upcoming ASEAN Tourism Exchange Forum on June 17 in Sabah as an opportunity to convene regional tourism masters and promote cooperation.
AirAsia, which operates 11 domestic and 18 international routes from Sabah, already expressed its vision to attract two million tourists annually.
