Singapore to offer low-cost tours

The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Sat, 10/14/2006 8:10 AM | Business

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

To the excitement of local cost-conscious tourists, the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) -- in cooperation with domestic low-cost carrier Citilink -- is soon to start offering low-cost package deals to the city state.

The package trips, to come on the market in mid-November, include no-frills flights provided by Citilink from Medan, Pekanbaru, Bandung and Surabaya to Batam, the nearest Indonesian island to Singapore, ferry transportation between Batam and Singapore, and hotel accommodation.

The details of the package deals were outlined in an agreement signed Thursday by STB's ASEAN regional director, Chooi Yee Choong, and Citilink vice president Joseph A Saul.

However, both sides declined to give any details on how much the package deals would cost, saying that discussions were still underway with a number of interested parties.

Chooi added that the package deals were also aimed at promoting Batam as an alternative gateway for Indonesian visitors to Singapore, as well as a potential destination for tourists from Singapore.

""We hope that with this alternative, not only will there be more Indonesian tourists visiting Singapore, but that there will also be more Singaporean tourists visiting Indonesia,"" he said.

STB figures for 2005 show that the number of Indonesia tourists visiting Singapore stood at 1.8 million, an increase of 2.2 percent from 1.76 million in 2004. Meanwhile, 1.6 million Singaporean tourists visited Indonesia in 2005, an increase of 12.5 percent from 1.4 million in 2004.

STB tourism business manager Hassan Kassim told The Jakarta Post that the flow of tourists between the two countries had remained fairly constant over the years due to a lack of development in air services between Singapore and Indonesia.

""Most of our tourists only go to Jakarta, Bali, Batam and Bintan when they visit Indonesia,"" Hassan said.

He said he hoped that with the new package deals, as part of which Citilink would establish alternative air links between Singapore and a number of cities in Indonesia via Batam, there would be an increase in tourism between the two countries.

He also said that the airline was also considering providing package deals from Pontianak, West Kalimantan, and Yogyakarta.

""With these services, we hope that we will be able to increase our load factors to between 80 and 90 percent,"" Joseph said, referring to flights to and from Singapore. (09)

Comments (0) | Post comment

A | A | A |