KOTA KINABALU: Sabah tourism players are hopeful inter-district travel in the state will be given green light when daily Covid-19 infections fall below 150 cases.
Sabah Association of Tour and Travel Agents (Satta) chairman Datuk Seri Winston Liaw said prolonging the Movement Control Order (MCO) further would see more players in the sector collapse.
He cited the popular tourist sites from Kota Kinabalu to Kudat and Kundasang have been left still for too long without financial support.
Allowing inter-district travel would be one of the steps to promote local tours as well as see struggling tourism operators such as hotels and lodges earn some income.
"Based on the current number of (Covid-19) cases in Sabah, we note that it has gradually reduced to about 200 cases per day.
"It will be fitting for the authorities to open the recreational parks to let people do some physical exercise and mental health activities such as running and practicing tai chi to ease their stress," said Liaw.
He said with the government's intensified efforts to get the people inoculated, the state could achieve herd immunity by the end of this year and normalcy returning as the economic recovery plan kicks in.
Liaw is also hopeful that authorities would speed up the implementation of the Public-Private Partnership Industrial Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PIKAS) in Sabah to vaccinate manufacturing, farms, plantation and construction workers.
He also urged the state government to bar people with the Delta Covid-19 variant from entering Sabah, otherwise, efforts to contain the virus would prove fruitless.