FROM January to September 2016, a complete of three,119,405 international visitors arrived in Brunei Darussalam.
The figures show that 2,931,327 people visited the border, 163,023 people by air and 25,055 people by sea/cruise.
To further stimulate development, Brunei Darussalam is always strengthening and improving its local tourism products to further increase the variety of tourists coming to the country.
These figures were revealed by Salinah binti Salleh, Head of Promotion and Marketing on the Tourism Development Department of the Ministry of Basic Resources and Tourism, during a press conference on the 2017 ASEAN Tourism Forum held at Marina Bay Sands yesterday morning.
“International arrivals are steadily increasing. Over the last eight years, from 2007 to 2015, tourist arrivals showed a compound annual growth rate of two.54% for air travel, 5.99% for cruises and 9.76% for border travel. she stated.
Regarding the probabilities, she stated that it’s a really exciting yr and there are numerous charter flights coming to Brunei, and he or she also expressed interest in flying to Brunei.
It cited a lot of charter flights, namely from Zhengzhou to Brunei from July 5, 2016, and from Seoul to Brunei from December last yr. Charter flights from Xian are operating this yr to open the Chinese market to Brunei Darussalam, while Royal Brunei Airlines (RB)’s code-sharing with Turkish Airlines, China Eastern Airlines and Hong Kong Airlines has improved service quality to Brunei.
She stressed that tourist guides in Brunei undergo training to acquire the suitable license, which is why the ministry encourages tourist guides to use for training conducted by a personal educational institution within the country.
Salinah also provided an update on visa facilitations, similar to visa-on-arrival in China, in addition to visa-free travel for Turkey and the introduction of metered taxis in July last yr, which has improved public transport.
“We have also repackaged our travel products. Our core Brunei tourism products are Temburong, Kampong Ayer and Bandar Seri Begawan, and since last year we have repackaged popular tourist destinations so that tourists can get a better overview of what is available in the country,” she added.
She also explained what educational tourism is all about, where visitors can enjoy quite a few eco-tourism attractions, and schools also help serve the international market.
Last yr, Jerudong International School (JIS) organised summer camp packages that welcomed students from everywhere in the world to Brunei.
