Walk through Kuching’s heritage shophouses or stand outside the cave mouths of Mulu these days, and the soundscape has noticeably shifted.
Between January and September this year, Sarawak welcomed 82,334 visitors from mainland China, marking a sharp 64.2% jump from the 50,131 arrivals recorded during the same nine-month stretch a year earlier.
In fact, Chinese travellers now make up more than three-quarters of all 108,816 North Asian visitors entering the state, handing local hoteliers, restaurant operators, and tour agencies a major post-pandemic windfall.
To keep those numbers climbing, the Sarawak Tourism Board (STB) took its pitch straight to northern China in late October, teaming up with Royal Brunei Airlines (RB) for business networking sessions in Beijing and Tianjin recently.
