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Sabah Visitors Statistics For Year Ended 2001

The year 2001 is another exciting year for Sabah Tourism's Industry. Visitors arrivals in Sabah, Borneo's Paradise has achieve another milestone as more visitors come to Sabah. 

From the Month of January to December this year, visitor arrivals totaled 918,523 as compared to 774,475 in the year 2000, an increase of a comfortable18.5% despite the September 11th Crisis. By achieving new records year after year, this shows that Sabah is on her way to maturing into a premier destination in Asia. 

International arrivals decreases to 44% of total arrivals as compared to 52.8% in 2000 while the remaining are domestic arrivals.  Domestic arrivals have increased to 55.7% as compared to 47.2% last year signifying that more Malaysians are coming to Sabah from other states as compared to traveling abroad for holidays.  Visitor from the Asia Region is still the highest at 39% as compared to 45.7% in 2000 with Europeans being the second highest Region at 3%  as compared to 3.3% in 2000 of total arrivals.

The highest month for arrivals was in the month of January at 104,530 and the lowest month was in May at 61,887 visitors. Due the September 11 crisis, international visitor arrivals have on average decrease about 30% but this is compensated by the increase in domestic arrivals signifying that more Malaysians are traveling domestically.

While most international market regions have recorded a slight decrease in arrivals, Markets that have recorded increases are Scandinavia with an increase of 19% to 4,363 visitors, France with an increase of 10% to 1,006 visitors, UK and Ireland with an increase of  6% to 19,690 arrivals, Japan with an increase of  15% to 13,943 arrivals, Hong Kong with an increase of 15% to 14,057 arrivals, China with and increase of a whopping 60% to 8,387 arrivals and Brunei with an increase of 33% to 42,782 arrivals.

It must be noted that more visitors from Brunei is visiting Sabah and more promotional and marketing efforts should be channeled to this market.

On the down side, the Taiwanese market, which is the largest single market sector for the industry has experienced a decrease of 18% from 111,952 to 94,769 arrivals and since the September 2001, visitors from Taiwan has decreased significantly from an average of 10,000 arrivals per month to only between 3,700 to 5,000 visitors only.

In terms of regions, the highest growth rates is only marginal with Oceania region recording the highest growth rate at 7.2% with 6,178 arrivals, Europe with an increase of 5% to 30,642 arrivals and Asia with an increase of 1.5% to 354,460 arrivals.

The only region that experience a down turn is from North America with a decrease of 46% from 14,185 to 9,717 arrivals.

With the end of the war in Afghanistan, the year 2002 is poised to be another record year for Sabah Visitors as more destinations more products and services are improved.

This information is courtesy of the Research Section of Sabah Tourism of which the source is provide by the Immigration department and Malaysia Airlines.

A PDF version of the full statistic is available for download.

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