Sarawak is banking on the interests towards frog and bird species to attract more tourists to the state this year, state Tourism Minister Abang Johari Openg said today.

He said frogging and birding workshops as well as heritage awareness programmes would be among the new guide training programmes that had been started this year to cater for tourists with special interests.

“In our effort to cater for the growing demand on eco-tourism packages, the tourism capacity building direction is to move up in the value chain by providing more training on special interest guiding and the other soft skills in service delivery,” he said in his winding-up speech for his ministry at the state legislative assembly sitting in Kuching.

He said the first frogging workshop was held last April at Kubah National Park near Kuching to give hands-on training, understanding and awareness on frogs.

Abang Johari said a bird guiding workshop would be held in August with the objective of creating interest about bird watching and bird conservation.

“The heritage awareness programme is also scheduled to be held this year to provide in-depth knowledge and awareness on Sarawak's heritage attractions,” he said.

According to him, Sarawak anticipated visitor arrivals to reach the 4.6 million mark this year.

“For the first quarter of 2014, Sarawak received 1.11 million visitors, representing an increase of 5.3 percent as compared to the same period in 2013,” he said.

For the whole of last year, he said the visitor arrivals into the state were 4.3 million with RM9.2 million worth of tourism receipts being estimated.

- Bernama