REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, PEKANBARU -- Department of Tourism and Creative Economy (Disparekraf) of Riau offered a number of international flight routes from Pekanbaru to a number of countries in Southeast Asia. The offers were given to airlines.

"We have various destinations, so that we hope there is connecting flights (direct flights) to Pekanbaru from a number of countries in ASEAN," said Chief of Disparekraf Riau, Fahmizal Usman, in Pekanbaru, on Tuesday (10/11).

For example, he stated, flight route from Johor Bahru Malaysia to Pekanbaru that had ever been turned on by an airline that was a subsidiary of Malaysia Airlines, namely Firefly, in several times a week.

Then, Firefly that had lasted about seven years in Subang-Pekanbaru route, had  flights four times a week by using ATR 72-500 aircraft with capacity of 70 seats, before it was closed on 23rd October this year.

"Actually, potential of foreign tourists visit from Malaysia to the Pekanbaru is large. The flights from Malacca are now being served by Malindo Air Malacca and from Kuala Lumpur are served by AirAsia. While, from Subang and Johor Bahru is still unserved," he explained.

Acting Governor of Riau, Arsyadjuliandi Rachman, asked relevant agencies to have strategies in order to attract foreign tourists to visit Riau, mainly in Southeast Asia. It was because every year, there were about 60 million foreign tourists had visited Southeast Asia.

"Nearly 60 million tourists visited Southeast Asia every year. However, they were intended to visit Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. This opportunity should be able to take," he said.

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