3,000 visitors from outside Sarawak targeted for Borneo Jazz 2012

The crowd at Borneo Jazz 2011 - Photo from jazzborneo.com

SOME 3,000 visitors from outside Sarawak are targeted for this year’s Borneo Jazz festival in Miri.

Jazz festivals are premium tourism products because international jazz music lovers are willing to travel abroad for prominent festivals.

An example is one of the world’s largest — the Montreal International Jazz Festival in Canada. It has managed to draw close to 2.5 million spectactors, of which 34 per cent are tourists and visitors. That’s 850,000 tourists and visitors.

Some of the shows draw crowds of over 200,000! This festival has been running for over 30 years.

Borneo Jazz, originally known as the Miri International Jazz Festival, began in 2006. I think the first festival was only attended by around 2,000.

So this year’s target of 9,000 with a third being visitors from outside the State is impressive stuff.

We all know that the Rainforest World Music Festival has been a huge draw for Kuching and Santubong. So much so that Penang has felt the need to copy this successful brand!

Anyway, the Sarawak Tourism Board (STB) will collaborate with the private sector to design tour packages for regional and overseas visitors to this year’s festival to give them the chance to visit places of interest and experience local activities.

This is a good move to value-add the visit for those from outside the State.

Looking forward to the festival which will run from May 11-12.

The Bernama report:

Borneo Jazz 2012 Expected To Draw 9,000 People

KUCHING, Jan 11 (Bernama) — A crowd of 9,000 is expected at this year’s Borneo Jazz, Sarawak’s premier international jazz festival, which will be held on May 11 and 12 in Miri, its organiser Sarawak Tourism Board (STB) announced today.

STB chief executive officer Datuk Rashid Khan said about a third of the crowd had been targeted to be visitors from outside Sarawak.

“This will augur well for the local business community and contribute significantly to the arrival figures to the state as a whole,” he said at a press conference to launch the festival, here, Wednesday.

Sarawak Tourism Minister Datuk Amar Abang Johari Tun Openg was on hand to launch it.

Rashid said STB would also be collaborating with the private sector to design tour packages for regional and overseas visitors to the festival to give them the chance to visit places of interest and experience local activities.

Eight jazz groups have confirmed their participation, nameyly New Cool Collective from the Netherlands, Schalk Joubert’s 3 Continents Sextet (South Africa), Nita Aartsen (Indonesia), SLIX (Germany), Koh Mr Saxman and Takeshi Band (Thailand), Tangora (France), Tropic Green (Singapore) and F.V.E Project (Malaysia).

Daily tickets priced at RM60 each for adults and RM30 for children aged between three and 12 will be available online from Feb 12.

Updates on this upcoming festival will be posted from time to time on http://www.jazzborneo.com.

— BERNAMA