KUCHING, Oct 17 — Sarawak Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts Minister Datuk Seri Karim Rahman Hamzah today said visitor arrivals in Sarawak will surpass the ministry’s target as more tourism events will be held before the end of this year.

He said his ministry’s target is 1.2 million this year against the original target of over 4 million that was set before the Covid-19 pandemic.

"The total visitor arrivals from January to September this year is 1,141,184 and so we have about 600,000 arrivals more to reach 1.2 million.

"I believe we can surpass the target with more tourism and business events planned this year,” he told reporters after officiating a Tribal Gathering organised by Business Events Sarawak.

He said by the end of the month the arrivals would be over 1.2 million.

He said foreign arrivals totalled 313,100 for the January to September 2022 period compared to 15,532 for the same period of last year.

He said most of the foreign tourists come from Brunei, Indonesia and Singapore.

"There has been a big increase of Singaporeans coming to Sarawak over the past few months,” he said.

Karim said tourism receipts for the January-September 2022 period were RM2.2 billion compared to RM200.13 million for the January-September 2021 period.

"For this year, nothing beats Sarawak when it comes to music tourism. We have so many music festivals and concerts that we held and we are going to have more, like the International Kuching jazz festival, which will attract more music fans from outside,” he said.

He said Sarawak is more open when it comes to holding public concerts and festivals, like the popular Rain Forest Music Festival.

Karim said for the rest of this year, over 40 big business events will be held in Sarawak.

He added that there will be an international dragon boat festival to be participated by 16 countries, which is good for those in the tourism industry.