22 March 2008

Indonesia and Russian Tourists


Indonesia is on the final day of a three-day road show in Moscow at the Moscow International Tourism and Travel (MITT) fair. The idea is simply to promote the culture and value of Indonesia as a travel destination for Russians. Russian estimations suggest that there are some 40 million Russians that travel each year.

In 2007 the number of Russian tourists entering Indonesia was a touch under 47,000 after having peaked at just over 47,210 in 2006. You can do the math on that as a percentage of the 40 million or more Russians that are traveling each year but it is not a big number.

The answer to raising the numbers of Russian tourists who choose Indonesia as their travel destination of choice is direct flights between Russia and Indonesia. Currently, Russians and Indonesians traveling between the two countries must transit in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, or Amsterdam. Apparently, the 'having to transit' issue is one cited as being a deterrent to travel. If this is indeed an accurate reflection of the majority of Russians, then a direct flight makes sense in both the common sense and money sense ways!

Let's see what happens! A direct route might inspire me and the missus to fork out some hard earned cash but probably not during the winter! The direct flight would be about 18 hours if any one wants to know!
The photo is from my personal collection and was taken at Borobudur Temple in February 2008...still learning in the photography department (it is one of my better ones so far though)...

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