Borneo Eco Tours Offers Wildlife Safari

Wed, Dec 16, 2009

Organisation, Places

Borneo Eco Tours (BET) is an award winning tour operator in Sabah that specializes in nature-based tours with packages ranging from soft and easy, botanical, exotic cultures, bird watching tours, wildlife river safari, white-water rafting, and jungle trekking.

Its tour product brands include, “Best of Borneo”, “Journey through Borneo” and “Borneo Safari Club”.

Set up in 1991 by Albert Teo who has over 30 years of experience in the tourism industry and trekked over 1,000km in Borneo, the company is staffed by 103 well trained personnel in the BET group of companies.

It has a fleet of 19 air-conditioned vehicles, five semi-cabin powerboat boats and seven river boats equipped with four-stroke and electric power engines.

The company, headquartered in Kota Kinabalu, has offices in Sandakan and Sukau.

BET also operates the budget 50-bed Borneo Backpackers  in Kota Kinabalu and the award winning 20-room eco-lodge Sukau Rainforest Lodge at Sukau.

This rainforest lodge hosted post conference tours of a number of international events.

These included the World Ecotourism Conference in 1999, the WWF Annual Conference 1999 in Kota Kinabalu, the first Asia Pacific Ecotourism Conference or APeco2002 and the Borneo Ecotourism Conference BEC2005 convened by Albert Teo.

Sukau Rainforest Lodge

The 20-rooms award winning lodge is managed by Borneo Eco Tours. It was built in 1995 in traditional Malaysian architecture using several Borneo hardwood species.

It is built on stilts with a lounge, gift shop, education centre, Hornbill Boardwalk with two elephant passes, three open decks for wildlife viewing, an enclosed garden, a riverside Melapi restaurant, open sun-deck, and a river jetty.

Electricity is supplied by acoustic generator and hot water by solar heaters. All rooms are twin bedded, with ceiling fan, mosquito netting, attached bathroom, hot shower and toilets.

River tours are conducted by boats powered by electric motors and four stoke outboard engines.

Birdlife is especially rich here including eight species of hornbills, kingfishers, egrets, darters, owls, kites, eagles, broadbills, doves, storm storks, herons, hawks, ospreys, falcon, pheasants, parakeets, bee eaters, woodpeckers, pittas, bulbuls, forktails, babblers, warblers, flycatchers, orioles, flowerpeckers, spiderhunters, among others.

Borneo Eco Tours has continuously supported efforts of WWF in preserving the natural floodplains of the Kinabatangan River, the longest in the state of Sabah.

Supporting WWF Conservation

It sets aside RM20 from its tour packages towards WWF’s Conservation Levy that is channeled into the conservation and protection of Kinabatangan’s flora and fauna.

The Sukau Rainforest Lodge was featured in National Geographic Adventure’s Top 50 Eco-lodges for 2009. You may view it at:

http://adventure.nationalgeographic.com/2008/11/ecotourism/best-jungle-lodges-text

At the same time, the lodge was nominated as one of the nine World’s Leading Eco-Lodges and one of Asia’s 5 Leading Green Hotels at the 15th World Travel Award. Read more about this at:

http://www.worldtravelawards.com/nominees2008-13

For the company’s latest e-newsletter, “Borneo eZone”, please click:

http://borneoecotours.com/news.php

Borneo Eco Tours,

Lot 1, Pusat Perindustrian Kolombong Jaya,

Mile 5 1/2, Jalan Kolombong,

88450 Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia.

Tel: 60-88-438300, Fax: 60-88-438307

Website: www.borneoecotours.com

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