Sabah, Malaysian Borneo is renowned for its friendly, warm and culturally diverse traditional communities as well as fascinating landscapes and world-class quality of wildlife and nature. Therefore, “Village-Stay” or “Home-Stay” have been developed in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo to showcase the uniqueness and richness of Sabah’s traditional cultural heritage to the world.
Village-Stay is a variant of Home-Stay concept; both are categorised as ‘Rural Tourism’ development, where strategic rural areas are identified and developed for the purpose of maximising tourism economic benefits for the interior communities.
Village-Stay is defined as a generic name to describe a form of holiday that is affordable, has a structured itinerary and involves a high degree of educational and experiential elements. The Village-Stay concept in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo is unique as visitors do not only experience the hospitality and traditions of the local communities in village lifestyle, but they also have an opportunity to visit a wide range of unexplored or ‘less popular’ nature-adventure destinations which are hidden from the destructive nature of mass tourism.
The Village-Stay concept has a great potential to be developed in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo for various reasons. Firstly, there has been an increasing demand from ‘alternative tourists’ for “Alternative Tourism” products; rural tourism (a form of alternative tourism) provides the tool for branding local, organic and traditional products. This encourages further development in ‘Alternative Tourism’ variants such as Cultural Tourism, Adventure Tourism, Green Tourism, Responsible Tourism, Traditional-Health Tourism, Conservation Tourism, Eco Tourism, Volunteer Tourism, Agro Tourism, etc, offering different travel experiences for different market segments.
Secondly, there has also been an increasing demand from corporate-incentive organisers for new destinations/sites; such organisers are looking for facilities located in remote (or new) areas; they want to combine under-commercialised nature adventure destinations with educational activities such as motivational, team building, group work, corporate games, training, orientation, experiential, etc.
Thirdly, the concept of village-Stay supports the diversification of tourism product in order to meet new demands in the market, creating business and employment opportunities for the interior community members hence, provides the means to promote sustainable development of rural tourism. Village-Stay can be viewed as a catalyst for generating other variants such as Urban Stay, Beach Stay, Jungle Stay, Agro Village Stay, Fishing Village Stay, Cultural Village Stay, Long House Stay, Health Farm Stay, etc.
Finally, the cultural elements in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo is very authentic; not only the ethnic communities in Sabah have strong connections with their cultural and traditional values, but they are also culturally-diverse with more than 30 ethic groups such as Bajau, Murut, Dusun, Rungus, Orang Sungei, etc.
KENINGAU: Chief minister Musa Aman wants to give land to thousands of extremely poor landless native villagers. But he faces a dilemma: the land is sold for a song to smooth-talking businessmen as soon as his government has given it to them. The villagers leave their home to spend their money in towns. Having spent it all, they are poor and landless again as they are displaced by new landowners. His solution: his state government will give villagers thousands of hectares of agricultural land. They will get a communal title, the first in Malaysia, which gives them joint-ownership of the property. They can develop the land but cannot sell it. Their heirs can inherit it for as long as the lease lasts. In this way the villagers will prosper and get themselves out of the poverty trap.
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