Mayor advocates more sports, cultural events as tourist attractions

MIRI (April 26): Miri City Council (MCC) is encouraging more sports and cultural events to be organised in the city as a way to attract more foreign tourists and visitors from neighbouring Brunei.

In this respect, mayor Adam Yii said a dialogue had been held between several agencies including Tourism Malaysia on April 11 to discuss outstanding issues and effective ways to boost tourism-related activities as attractions.

“With that being said, we have identified several events that potentially can attract many tourists coming here, such as sporting events. Marathon and other sports event are, in fact, quite popular among Bruneians, thus this would be the area that we can look into,” he told a press conference after MCC’s full council meeting at Miri City Hall yesterday.

The next big event that will be coming up, he mentioned, would be the Miri City Day, to celebrate the 18th year of Miri’s elevation to city status on May 20.

“In Western culture, 18th year is a significant year of becoming an adult. MCC has come up with the decision to internationalise Miri City Day, by inviting cities that are friendly with Miri City, to come celebrate the special occasion with us.

“The cities are in Canada, Philippines, South Korea and cities in China. At the moment, those are prospective, we will continue to update prior to the celebration,” said Yii.

Other issues that were discussed at the dialogue held between MCC; Customs, Immigration and Quarantine Centre (CIQ) in Sungai Tujoh; Immigration Department; Tourism Malaysia; and Ministry of Domestic Trade and Costs of Living were the improvement of CIQ Sungai Tujoh checkpoint’s efficiency, tourists’ safety when in Miri, and profiteering.

“We have discussed on ways to simplify the procedure and suggestion to increase the operating capacity at these checkpoints to allow smooth entry of tourists into the country. After all, the immigration checkpoint is the first impression of tourists of a country,” said Yii.

He added that the city council was ready to work with the police to improve Miri City’s safety, to allow tourists to feel safe when travelling here.

As for profiteering, Yii felt that the matter was not common and did not happen frequently, as Malaysian retailers have good practice of displaying price of items.

“We have also given some suggestions to hoteliers to up their game so that the standard of their services and facility are up to expectations,” he added.