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Kota Kinabalu: Tourism in Sabah will suffer a slower recovery because of China’s “zero-Covid” policy, which strictly limits travel to and from the country, industry leaders said.

They said Sabah is highly dependent on tourists from China, who made up half of tourist arrivals between 2017 and 2019.

An upsurge in cases from the Omicron variant has caused lockdowns to be imposed in several cities including Shanghai..

Winston Liaw, chairman of the Sabah Association of Tour and Travel Agents, said: “Sabah can forget about the China market this year. I think we can only expect them to come next year.”

Sandakan Tourism Association president Teo Chee Kim said the state must look into its dependence on Chinese tourists, and open up other regional markets such as tourists from Singapore, Thailand, India, Indonesia and Japan.

Liaw said the next best option was South Korea, which is only second behind China in terms of international arrivals within the same period.

He also said international arrivals will only pick up next month as no international flights are scheduled to land in Sabah until the end of April.

Lawrence Chin, Sabah chairman of the Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents, said tourism leaders should also attract guests from Europe, North America and Australia.

An economist, Firdausi Suffian, had cautioned against high expectations over a speedy recovery in tourism.

“Since the economy has only recently opened, people need to make up for what they have spent or lost. And since travelling is a leisure activity, it may take some time for them to save enough money to travel,” he said.