KUCHING: Sarawak expects to receive four million visitor arrivals this year, surpassing its initial target of three million, says Datuk Seri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah.
The state Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts Minister said Sarawak had already recorded 2.27 million visitors from January to July this year, a huge increase compared with 703,891 in the same period last year.
"In July alone, we had 312,197 visitors, of whom 172,363 were foreigners.
"I believe that by September, we will hit our target of three million arrivals.
"By December, looking at the rate of events and activities that are happening, we can reach four million arrivals," he told reporters after launching the What About Kuching (WAK) Festival's call for proposals here on Tuesday (Aug 15).
Abdul Karim said Sarawak's highest ever number of visitors was 4.6 million in 2019, just before the Covid-19 pandemic.
"We had actually set a target of five million arrivals for 2020, but then Covid-19 struck in March that year.
"For last year, our target was 1.2 million arrivals but we surpassed it with 2.02 million," he said.
Abdul Karim said events such as the WAK Festival, slated to take place throughout October, would help bring in more visitors.
He said the festival had grown from a small event in 2017 to having 181 events with 59 collaborators under its umbrella last year.
"This is a home-grown event that provides an avenue for our youths to showcase their talents in theatre, dance and other fields.
"The continuous growth and success of WAK demonstrate its growing importance in the local and regional cultural scene," he added.
Festival director Donald Tan said this year's edition would be open to collaborators from Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and neighbouring countries such as Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei and the Philippines.
"By attracting creatives from outside Sarawak to share their talents, we will elevate local standards of creativity as we move forward," he said.
Tan said WAK was an umbrella festival for community-driven arts, culture and lifestyle events.
"We don't pick and choose genres when it comes to events as we are an open-access festival.
"The number of events and collaborators last year was overwhelming, but this year we anticipate slightly less because collaborators only have 14 days to submit their proposals.
"If we can have a repeat number as last year, that would be excellent," he said.
Those interested to participate can submit their proposals at www.aboutkuching.com.
The closing date is Aug 30.
