The Sarawak government is expecting it will hit its 4 million tourist arrivals target this October 2024.
Sarawak Ministry of Tourism,Creative Industry, Performing Arts, Dato Sri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah was reported by TVS as saying that Sarawak received 3.3 million visitors in August 2024 with figures from September not yet finalized.
Abdul Karim said that Sarawak received an average of 400,000 visitors monthly this year, making the 4 million target set by his ministry to be achieveable as early as October this year.
Increase of events
Abdul Karim’s confidence is likely to stem from October being one of Sarawak’s bussiest months when it comes to major events.
Our record of events in Kuching alone shows that there is no less than 11 events held this month, with major events like the Borneo Sonic Music Festival, Kuching Marathon, Kuching Jazz Festival and the Sarawak Regatta being held back to back over each weekend.
These events will definately bring in visitors to Kuching as they also bring in outside artist and performers to Kuching, and Sarawak.
In addition to that, the month long What About Kuching will also see more tourist and guest travel to Sarawak, particularly with Kuching’s very first Kuching Comic-Con being held on October 19th.
With plenty of local and smaller events also happening this October, achieving 4 million visitors would likely be ‘a piece of cake’ for Sarawak.
Record breaking Sarawak tourist arrivals in 2024?
Sarawak is set to break its own record when it comes to tourist arrivals if the trend of getting 400,000 tourist a month continues until the end of 2024.
Based on rough calculations, Sarawak could hit 5 million tourist arrivals by year end, more than its highest achievement of 4.6 million tourist arrivals in 2019.
Abdul Karim had also indicated such possibility with The Star reporting in August that he was already expecting tourist arrivals to exceed their 4 million target.
In fact, Abdul Karim had also stated that the current number of tourist is unprecedented.
We had also observed that the number of tourist in Kuching is on the rise, with The Star also reporting that Sarawak had recorded tourism receipts of RM7.3bil from January to July this year.
