Sabah's five-star resorts show incentives increase

By Patricia Wee Kota Kinabalu Sabah has seen renewed interest in the number of incentive groups to its five-star resorts in the past year. Nexus Resort Karambunai managed 35 incentives during June 2003 and July 2004 this year and business levels improved by 30 per cent. Incentive groups came from Europe, Asia, Australia and Malaysia, spanned the pharmaceutical, IT, consulting, banking, education and government sectors. European incentives averaged six nights, while Australians stayed five nights and Asian groups three nights in Sabah. The resort's senior CEI manager Rob Tan attributed the resort's success to the varied options available to participants and more direct flights from Japan, Australia, China and the launch of budget airline AirAsia. Word-of-mouth recommendation from top incentive houses has also steered business toward the resort. He said: "We are giving more options and tailor-made ideas for specific incentive groups and this provides a learning experience with local cultural elements." Another 18 incentives are in the books and business from August to October 2004 "looks very promising". At Shangri-La's Tanjung Aru Resort, ten groups stayed at the resort from June 2003 to June this year. These included the Golf Digest Competition group, Medical Tropical Travel, Actuant Asia and Unilever Foods. Compared with the same period last year, there has been a steady increase in regional visitors for all segments. The largest increase in the number of incentive groups came from Australia, registering an impressive 580 per cent, followed by Hong Kong at 108 per cent and Japan at 59 per cent. The resort's spokesperson Tulip Noorazyze said the launching of direct flights by Australia Airlines to Kota Kinabalu and Malaysian Airlines to Osaka had helped boost business.