SEOUL: Sabah foresees a surge in the Korean visitor arrivals, said state Minister of Tourism, Culture and Environment Datuk Christina Liew.
During a networking meeting with five airlines representatives here, Liew said Asiana airline was mounting daily charter flights from Incheon to Kota Kinabalu from Dec 23 to Feb 29 next year.
The minister also attributed the anticipated surge to an increased flight frequency for the Busan to Kota Kinabalu scheduled flight via Air Busan from twice weekly to four times weekly from Dec 28 to March 3 next year.
"On top of that, there will be a change of aircraft model from B738 (seat 189) to B777-200 (seat 393) for the Incheon to Kota Kinabalu scheduled flight via Jin Air seven times weekly from Dec 13 to March 3, 2024," Liew said in a statement.
This morning, AirAsia had also launched the sale of its direct flight between Kota Kinabalu and Seoul.
Meanwhile, Charge D'Affaires of the Embassy of Malaysia in Seoul Nazarudin Ja'afar said the Republic of Korea had been and remained one of the top 10 market sources for Malaysia since 2015.
"As of June 2023, Malaysia welcomed 188,784 arrivals from the Republic of Korea. Malaysia targets to receive 16.1 million international tourist arrivals in 2023, with projected tourism receipts of approximately USD10.7 billion," Nazarudin said.
For next year, Sabah has established a goal of receiving 2.8 million tourists, with an anticipated revenue of RM5.6 billion from tourism.
