Sabah, Malaysia is balancing tourism and preservation at ITB Berlin 2024
Christina Liew, Minister of Tourism, Culture and Environment of Sabah, Malaysia, stresses that the State of Sabah is increasingly aware of the need to balance the development of tourism and the preservation of development.
What are you presenting at ITB Berlin this year?
We are of course emphasising eco-tourism activities with our spectacular nature offer. However, we are presenting it in a different way compared to previous years. Now when we promote our eco-tourism activities, we also look strongly at environmental preservation. Our aim is to protect our local communities and ensure environmental preservation to balance as much as possible tourists’ footprint.
What kind of experiences are visitors to Sabah looking for today?
Travellers want to experience authenticity, above all. And to go back to nature. This is why we concentrate our promotion around four main themes: mountain tourism – and particularly the Mount Kinabalu-, our islands, our jungles and our diving spots. All of them are however promoted by always taking into consideration the balance between development and preservation.
How is Sabah harnessing community-based tourism in order to economically empower residents?
We have a popular programme around community-based tourism with many villages being listed as perfect to receive foreign travellers. This is an experience that travellers love because, beyond generating income, it is also a way to foster the spirit of being together. For villagers, we also emphasise specific requirements to be sure that they provide good standards of service to their guests. If they match our checklist, they can even receive government’s subsidies.
