Sarawak govt invites airline giants to fly direct from mainland

Lee (Fourth from left at the front) with Wang Xu (far left), Jian Min (second from right)

and other guests during the dinner.

MIRI: The Sarawak state government has invited the two largest airlines in China - China Air and China Southern Airlines, to fly direct from mainland China to Sarawak.

The state wants to establish direct air connections between major cities in mainland China like Guangzhou, Shenzen and Shanghai with Sarawak cities of Kuching and Miri and big towns like Sibu.

“China Air and China Southern Airlines have the capability to start such direct China-Sarawak flights,” said Sarawak assistant tourism minister Datuk Lee Kim Shin who hosted a dinner on Saturday to welcome the two airlines’ top bosses to Miri.

Among the guests were China Southern Airlines regional general manager for Malaysia Wang Xu and China Air regional manager for Malaysia Yin Jian Min.

Lee said he had personally made trips to China repeatedly to establish contacts to get the airlines to fly direct to Sarawak.

“This visit by the top officials of these airlines from China is a good start to establish direct air links between China cities and Sarawak cities.

“STB is playing host to these managers from the airlines and we want to show them the attractions that we have in our state.

“We, in the state government, and State Tourism Ministry are confident that there will be direct flights into Sarawak cities from several China cities very soon.

“We are aggressively marketing our natural assets as tourism attractions to China tourists living in mega-cities. We have everything like mountains, beaches, caves, jungles and rivers to attract Chinese tourist.

“There is a big market for China tourists who are keen to enjoy nature, adventure, food and culture,” he added.

Lee said many tour agents from China had visited the state and were impressed with what Sarawak has to offer.

Numerous television stations in China were also invited to come and produce travel and adventure documentaries, he said.

“There is also the first-ever romance-movie on mainland China and northern Sarawak that was filmed here last year,” he added.

The joint venture film between China-Malaysia Universal Television Company (Msia) and Global Business Club International Group China featured beautiful scenes of Miri city and its nearby beaches as well as the wonders of Mulu and Niah.

“The movie project was a good platform for tourism and to strengthen bilateral and ties between Sarawak and China and these ties will hopefully lead to China Air and China Southern Airlines flying direct to Sarawak from China,” he added.

-thestar online.
https://sarawaktourism.com/