Agents Told to go Inbound

By Roger J Duyong

SIBU, Sept 6 -- Second Minister of Finance, Urban Development and Tourism, Datuk Wong Soon Koh launched a Central Region magazine supplement at Paramount Hotel yesterday morning.

The central region of Sarawak has moved a step further into the main stream of tourism information highway, with the launch of the glossy and colourful magazine.

Speaking at the launch, Wong Soon Koh said the magazine; Virtual Malaysia had done a good job in portraying the many tourist products available here.

He said that there were many products that could be promoted as tourist attractions namely people's different cultures, heritage, agro-tourism and nature adventures.

"There are in fact plenty of tourism products that are unique to our place that we can promote to the outsiders, contrary to what most people think," he said.

For example, our Rajang River, our people who are from different background and cultures, our farms and more are in fact tourist attractions themselves.

"We tend to take them for granted as we see them everyday. However, to outsiders all of these are very interesting. Therefore, it is important for us to look at the uniqueness, from the tourists' point of view, he said.

"The responsibility was now on the shoulders of tour agents to start the ball rolling by packaging these into tourist products," said Wong. They were also advised to concentrate on inbound tours.

[Eastern Times]