KUALA LUMPUR: Kampung Batu Puteh of Sabah’s Lower Kinabatangan River was awarded the inaugural Best Tourism Village\u00a0Award by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) in Madrid, Spain yesterday.\u00a0
\nThe official announcement and awards ceremony yesterday was attended by Minister of Tourism Arts and Culture Datuk Seri Nancy Shukri and Chairman of the Batu Puteh Community Ecotourism Cooperative Abdul Sanih Nasri, who received the award from UNWTO secretary-general, Zurab Pololikashvili.
\nThe Batu Puteh community is made up of local rural people, fisherfolk and farmers, and the ministry, in a statement today, said the village-based community cooperative, which encompasses a number of ecotourism ventures and conservation initiatives, has more than 350 members and cooperative shareholders.\u00a0
\nThe joint venture led by the Model Ecologically Sustainable Community and Tourism (MESCOT) together with the award-winning Miso Walai Homestay offers an organised community-based cultural tourism experience, the statement said.\u00a0
\nFollowing\u00a0the prestigious award, Nancy said that Batu Puteh is a successful model of Responsible Rural Tourism, Ecotourism and Community Based Tourism, which Malaysia continues to promote extensively.
\nThis tourism niche is one of the country\u2019s main areas of strength considering the abundance of natural assets, heritage and cultural diversity with which we are blessed,\u201d Nancy said.\u00a0
\nFor Malaysia, she said the global pandemic crisis had\u00a0presented an opportunity for a new beginning as there is a rising interest in \u2018second city\u2019 travel and the exploration of lesser-known destinations.
\n“I believe this is the best time to promote hidden gems in our countryside, as tourists are expected to prefer nature-based destinations with a laid-back lifestyle and plenty of fresh air,\u201d Nancy added.
\nThe minister also commended UNWTO for its introduction of timely initiatives for such awards.
\nThese awards and recognition programmes will go a long way to infusing a greater sense of purpose and pride among the homegrown small and micro enterprises which make up the majority of tourism enterprises in the Asia-Pacific region,\u201d Nancy concluded.
\n— BERNAMA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KUALA LUMPUR: Kampung Batu Puteh of Sabah’s Lower Kinabatangan River was awarded the inaugural Best Tourism Village\u00a0Award by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) in Madrid, Spain yesterday.\u00a0 The official announcement and awards ceremony yesterday was attended by Minister of Tourism Arts and Culture Datuk Seri Nancy Shukri and Chairman of the Batu Puteh […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":8415,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8413","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-local-news"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8413"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8416,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8413\/revisions\/8416"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}