| James Kon |
A HADRAH group at the Brunei International Airport yesterday greeted 148 Chinese tourists who arrived via BI668, the inaugural Royal Brunei Airlines (RB) direct flight from Haikou in Hainan, China.
The tourists are in Brunei for four days, visiting places of interest including Kampong Ayer, the Royal Regalia Museum and the Gadong night market.
Present at the airport were Acting Director of the Tourism Development Department Salinah binti Haji Mohd Salleh and Inbound and Meeting Incentive Conference Exhibition (MICE) Division Manager at Freme Travel Services Sugumaran Nair.
RB is offering flights to Haikou twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays to boost tourism and investment opportunities between both cities.
Beside Haikou, RB already flies to Nanning and Hangzhou. The next destination will be Changsha, which will take off on January 15, 2019.
Salinah said, “With increasing new routes opening, it is an opportunity for local travel agents to look for new markets to attract more tourists to visit Brunei Darussalam.
“We hope to increase the number of tourist arrivals each year. Many tourists who visited Brunei prefer to stay here longer.
“Recently, a delegation from the Macau International Chamber of Commerce had a short stay in Brunei before flying off to their next destination, because they didn’t know what Brunei had to offer.
“After spending time here, they said that they should have stayed longer.”
Nair, meanwhile, commented, “The new RB direct flight to Haikou has opened a new market for Brunei, which is good news for the tourism industry.”
Tourist, Teng Yaoquan, told the Weekend Bulletin, “I learnt about Brunei from news reports, as part of the Belt and Road initiative.
“We find Brunei very interesting with its famous water village and we look forward to visit it.”