Concerted Efforts Needed To Promote Borneo As Premier Ecotourism Destination

KUALA LUMPUR, April 30 (Bernama) -- Concerted efforts by the relevant government agencies and the private sector are needed to promote Borneo as a premier eco-tourism destination in the world, said Sabah Tourism chairman Tengku Zainal Adlin. The imperatives for the way forward were shared visions and values, a global and experiential brand, clear roadmap, good infrastructure and direct intra transport (air, land and sea) connectivity, strategic networking and smart partnership with key players, he said. He told Bernama this at the recent Pacific Area Travel Association (PATA) Annual Meeting at the Borneo Convention Centre in Kuching.

He said creativity and innovation, packaging the best of Borneo, joint promotion and marketing, strategic initiatives and direction to achieve measurable targets, both government-led and private-sector driven, were needed to attract the tourists. Equally important, he said, was community based tourism (CBT) in unlocking potential and empowering the local community towards poverty alleviation. "Green tourism, constant product improvement, quality service, benchmarking, best pratices, people-to-people and building relationship are prerequisites, he said adding that cleanliness, politeness and efficiency must be a way of life of all stakeholders. He said the Borneo-Three Countries One Conservation Vision, Three Countries One Ecotourism Vision inititive could shine among the best. Borneo, comprising three countries -- Brunei, Indonesian Kalimantan and the Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak and Labuan island -- was strategically located by the equator in the centre of Southeast Asia, he said.

It is a veritable melting pot of indegeneous people, cultures and traditions set amid a landscape which ranges from the oldest rain forests to the highest mountain in Southeast Asia. Borneo is among the top 12 mega biodiversity sites in the world, ranked with Amazonia and equatorial Africa, and blessed with the world's most biologically productive and diverse ecosystem on earth," according to the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF). The Heart of Borneo (HoB) initiative is the world's largest contiguous network of rain forests of 220,000 sq km under natural forest management. Tengku Zainal said Borneo, the biggest component of BIMP-EAGA, was an emerging, exotic, exciting, highly diverse, unique and value destination with huge potentials for sustainable growth. "Culturally, naturally and historically, Borneo resonates a premier ecotourism destination," a destination like no other, being the heart of biodiversity and beacon of cultural diversity," he added.