Visitor Arrivals to Bintan Resorts Up in 2009

Bintan Resorts recorded an increase in visitor arrivals for the year ending 31st December 2009. The destination saw a total of 410,454 visitor arrivals in 2009, which represented a 3.2% growth from the 397,833 visitors in 2008. Though the increase is slight, this positive figure is a silver lining in the aftermath of the global economic downturn.

“We had forecasted that arrivals in 2009 will dip 3% to 5% from the previous year because of the global financial crisis and the outbreak of H1N1,” said Mr Asad Shiraz, Director Marketing, Bintan Resorts International. “As such, we focused our marketing efforts on the short- and medium- haul markets. Happily, the efforts paid off and we sustained positive growth.”

Singapore remains the biggest market for Bintan Resorts, accounting for 118,809 visitors and making up nearly 30% of all arrivals. Coming in a close second is the Indonesian domestic market with 88,631 arrivals, or 21.6% of total arrivals. Both markets showed a growth of 6.1% and 7.9% growth over the previous year.

Travellers from the rest of Asia accounted for half of all arrivals, with Hong Kong showing the most remarkable 39.2% growth. The emerging markets of China and India continued to show significant increases of 21.3% and 15.5% respectively. Other major markets such as Germany and Australia also registered healthy growth of 16.3% and 10.4% respectively.

As the global economy is beginning to show signs of improvement, Mr Shiraz expects robust growth to return in 2010. He added that there are already plans in the pipeline to create more activities and events to aggressively promote Bintan Resorts as an events venue, the first of which is the Bintan Cultural Festival taking place in March 2010.

On the sporting front, Bintan Resorts has been the venue for the annual Bintan Triathlon for the last 5 years and will continue to be in 2010. It will also hold the 1st ever Tour de Bintan cycling event this year and talks are underway for a wakeboarding championship to be held there.

See recent travel news from: Travel News Asia, Bintan, Singapore