Following a positive trend in tourist arrivals over the past few months, Sarawak is expected to receive between 3.8 million to 4 million tourists by the end of this year.Deputy Minister of Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts Datuk Sebastian Ting said he is confident that Sarawak had already recorded around three million tourist arrivals as of Sept this year.

“At the beginning of this year, we set a target of three million tourist arrivals. However, by August, we had already recorded 2.6 million arrivals, and I’m sure we’ve reached the three-million mark by September.

“With that, we are looking at a minimum of 3.8 million, but we never know. We are very hopeful on this and by year’s end, perhaps we can achieve 4 million tourists,” he said when met by reporters after officiating the 18th Sarawak Malaysia Association of Tour and Travel Agents (Matta) Travel Fair 2023 here today.Ting said this would mean that Sarawak would need at least 800,000 more tourist arrivals in order to achieve the desired target, thus, the state will be hosting numerous exciting events and programmes between Oct and Dec this year.

“If we manage to achieve the target figure, Sarawak will be approaching the tourist arrival record much like the pre-Covid-19 pandemic, which was 4.66 million arrivals in 2019,” he said.