Sixty-five registered tour operators at the  Kadamaian Tourism Centre (KATA), Kota Belud has agreed to stop operating even though some activities of the tourism industry during the time of the Movement Control Order (MCO) have been permitted.

The unanimous decision has been taken since the introduction of the MCO on 13 January in an attempt to help minimize the spread of the COVID-19,KATA President Walter Kandayon said. 

“Although the government allows a number of operations such as food business, we, the tourism operators in Kadamaian felt that it would be better to close our operations here altogether due to the surge in  COVID-19 cases.

“We didn’t want a new cluster to emerge from our tourism centre as we wouldn’t know whether some of the visitors were free of the viral infection or not,”he said.

He said another reason for the closure was that the number of visitors to the center had been lesser since last year, even at a time when no MCO had been enforced. "Our workers' wages do not pay the limited number of tourists,' he said.

The tourist center located in the Kadamai state district, which has 74 villagers and over 35,000 residents, about 85 kilometers away from Kota Kinabalu. It had been receiving visitors five years ago.

Among the activities available to visitors to the center were jungle trekking, hill climbing, water rafting in Sungai Kadama, bird watching, stargazing, educational tourism and cultural activities.