VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Garuda Indonesia airlines continues to improve connectivity both at home and abroad to increase the number of tourist visits to Indonesia. President Director of PT. Garuda Indonesia, Pahala Nugraha Mansury, said the most important thing in the tourism sector is connectivity, considering that Indonesia is an archipelago. He said tourists were connected to tourist destinations by air. Therefore, Garuda opened three additional international routes, one of which is direct flights from Mumbai, India to Denpasar, Bali.  In a press release on Thursday (9/8) Pahala said India was a country with the largest number of tourists besides China. He added Garuda Indonesia also developed domestic flight connectivity, especially airports that have the potential to attract tourists.

“The point is connectivity. So how we continue to develop the good route from outside to Indonesia to be able to develop inbound tourism. So this year there are already three additional routes that we have developed, the first is Mumbai - Denpasar, of course India is one of the countries with tourists with the biggest growth currently reaching almost 500 thousand tourists. Then China as the largest country today we see its potential also its growth is still above 20 percent even reaching 40 percent. Then  domestic connectivity in particular is areas that have good potential in terms of bringing in tourists and also outside Bali” Pahala said.

Pahala added that currently Bali was still the main destination for 40 percent of tourists visiting Indonesia. Therefore Garuda Indonesia also needs to diversify tourist destinations that are not less interesting than Bali. The next route to be opened by Garuda is the route to Selayar, South Sulawesi and Silangit Lake Toba, North Sumatra using a fleet labeled "Explore". (VOI/Rezha/DP)