KOTA KINABALU: Sandakan Tourism Association (STAN) and Malaysia Airlines Bhd (MAB) jointly launched the "Discover A Great Deal More in Sandakan" promotional campaign to further boost tourist arrivals in the east coast town.
MAB group chief marketing and customer experience officer Lau Yin May said tourism has been progressively returning to full recovery as their #FlyConfidently campaign has recorded 75 to 80 per cent of seats booked for most flights.
With the upcoming festive season, she said it was an opportunity for Malaysians who recently redeemed the RM100 vouchers through the "Jom Cuti-Cuti Malaysia" campaign to use their vouchers on flights and enjoy their vacations to Sandakan and other parts of Sabah.
STAN president Teo Chee Kim said the special campaign would further promote Sandakan region domestically and to the Singapore market.
"Sandakan is well-known as the gateway to Borneo's wildlife.
"The name Sandakan may automatically conjure up the image of lush tropical rainforest, orang-utan, Bornean sun bear, proboscis monkey, pygmy elephant and more," he said in a statement.
He said culinary tourism was also gaining popularity in Sandakan with their fresh seafood and unique local pastries and beverages such as UFO tart and Avocado ABC.
There are numerous heritage sites with fascinating stories from British colonial period around the city waiting to be uncovered, he said.
"Through this campaign, we hope to diversify Sandakan's offerings and further strengthen Sandakan's destination awareness in the tourism circuit," said Teo.
The promotion ranging from airfare tickets, holidays packages and experiences open for booking from Aug 5 to 19, 2022, for immediate travel on March 31, 2023.
Domestic travellers will fly from Kuala Lumpur to Sandakan with a special one-way fare of RM179.
Likewise, travellers from Singapore will also get a 15 per cent discount when flying to Sandakan via Kuala Lumpur.
Meanwhile, MAB tour operating arm MHholidays is offering customers flight and holiday packages, including hotel stays starting from RM509 in selected hotels and destinations in Sandakan.
Reservations through the promotion could be made at https://holidays.malaysiaairlines.com/mhholidays-home.html from today until Aug 19.
STAN members such as Sabah Hotel, Pavilion Hotel, Borneo Eco Tours, Balin Rooftop Bar, San Da Gen Kopitiam, Urban Café and KITA Our Fresh Mart also offer travellers food and beverage at discounted prices or shopping vouchers.
Currently, MAS is operating 10 weekly flights from Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) to Sandakan and vice versa on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.