Jafry said this was due to the industry’s heavy dependence on flights to bring in guests.

With the state’s borders closed until Covid-19 is effectively contained, he said the success of the vaccination process in the country will determine whether Sabah can once again welcome foreign and domestic guests.

As such, he said the Sabah Tourism Board (STB) has lined up several strategies to diversify the sector instead of just focusing on mass tourism.

Jafry said STB was looking into promoting alternative destinations, which were not part of the main tourist belt. This, he said, would cater to smaller groups of tourists.

Besides that, he said the agency was also looking at increasing the frequency of flights to districts with such potential, adding these destinations must be able to attract domestic and foreign tourists, in the long run.

“In this aspect, the ministry’s focus is to upgrade the tourism facilities for high yield tourists,” he said.

Meanwhile, Jafry said the government will hand out a one-off RM300 assistance to local industry players affected by the pandemic.

He added this assistance, which will be given to mountain porters, tourist guides and art industry players among others, comes under the second phase of Sabah’s Covid-19 mitigation initiative.

He said his ministry was also looking at measures to help hotel and lodging operators in Sabah, of which some had been shut with workers losing their jobs.

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