German Embassy to help promote Sabah
Published on: Saturday, June 03, 2023
Liew (left) presenting a token of appreciation to Dr Blomeyer. Looking on at right is the Ministry’s Permanent Secretary Datuk Sr. Mohd Yusrie Abdullah.
Kota Kinabalu: Germany’s Ambassador to Malaysia Dr Peter Blomeyer said his embassy in Kuala Lumpur will help promote Sabah as an ideal destination for MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conventions & Exhibitions) events.
He said this during a courtesy call on State Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Christina Liew at her office at Wisma Tun Fuad Stephens on Thursday.
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“We plan to introduce ‘two in one’ packages to potential visitors whereby participants have the opportunity to explore Sabah as tourists after attending their business event.
Proposed incentive packages for travellers are also in the pipeline,” she told Dr Blomeyer.
It was his maiden visit to the State to see German projects, meet NGOs and get a picture of life in this part of the world with different tribes and cultures.
Liew offered to facilitate communication with specific tourism companies in Germany if the Ministry’s marketing team can contact the Embassy to help secure MICE events.
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“We have companies specialising in various tourist events, including study tours to certain cities. If you get to know them, and tell them what you have to offer, then that’s the best way to strike a deal.
“Being the biggest tourism event in the world, the ITB Berlin is the best occasion to promote what you want for Germany and other tourism players in the world who are all there,” Dr Blomeyer said.
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The ambassador invited more Germans to participate in nature tourism and ecotourism projects in Sabah on a joint venture basis.
“I am a fan of nature. I believe that conservation of nature depends on the communities. If the communities can earn some money for this, then they will appreciate nature and will regard it as an asset, and so it’s actually a win-win situation.
“The tourists can really see marvellous things, and the communities benefit and nature benefits, too, provided it is soft tourism, and not mass tourism,” Dr Blomeyer said.
Impressed with GIZ’s ongoing environmental projects in Malaysia, including one on anti-fish bombing at the Tun Mustapha Marine Park, Liew said she welcomed the
German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ) embarking on more such projects in Sabah.
The embassy is funding a small project in Tawau where NGOs have ventured into entrepreneurship through breeding locations for hornbills.
“If we make a corridor to connect these locations, the genetic pool of these birds will be enlarged.
The NGOs plant fruit trees which the hornbills like. We support this tree-planting project.”
Dr Bromeyer was interested to know how culture can be represented here where there are, not less than 35 tribes and 130 sub-tribes with many different cultures and languages as well as immigrants who could influence culture in one way or another.
“How do you cope with it, and what is your programme on your idea of representing this diversity so that the people can understand it?” he said.
According to Dr Blomeyer, he would also assess the security situation as right now, there is a warning against going to some areas on the East Coast. “It would be for Berlin to decide whether to lift the travel advisory,” he said,
He wanted to know Sabah’s tasks or mitigation measures to tackle fish bombing, coral changes, plastic pollution, climate change and floods.
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