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Low tourism result of lack of direct flights: Ambassador
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Kazakhstan's national carrier, Air Astana (Shutterstock/Anton Akhmatov )
I
ndonesian Ambassador to Kazakhstan Foster Gultom has said there is a difficulty in promoting Indonesian tourism in Kazakhstan due to a lack of direct flights.
According to data in the Indonesian Embassy in Astana, only 10,000 Kazakhtan tourists visited Indonesia in 2015, a low number compared with the 75,000 who visited Thailand and the 15,000 visiting Malaysia in the same year.
“To even try increasing this figure by as few as 1,000 is very difficult,” Foster said upon receiving a delegation from the Tourism Ministry to the embassy in Astana on Tuesday, September 28. “There is no direct flight yet,” he emphasized.
(Read also: State set to run biggest hotel chain in Indonesia)
As quoted by kompas.com, Foster explained that currently Kazakhstan’s national carrier, Air Astana, only operates direct flights to Malaysia and Thailand, and Indonesian flag carrier, Garuda Indonesia, has yet to open direct flights to Kazahstan. The lack of direct flights, said Foster, made Kazakhstan tourists consider other destinations.
“Where will we fly through? How many hours? They say that going to Nice or Venice is closer to Kazakhstan. So these people are monitoring European travel destinations. They also like Dubai, a lot of locals travel to Dubai,” he said.
Foster hopes Garuda Indonesia will have the courage to open direct flights to and from Kazakhstan. The ambassador, who has been in office since 2012, is hopeful about reaching the 12 million tourists target in 2016, as well as the 20 million target in 2019. (asw)
