More local souvenir outlets needed

THE sultanate needs to create more outlets selling local made souvenirs, which seems to be a big attraction for tourists, according to a manager of a travel agency.

Sugumaran Nair, the Manager of Freme travel, said that the" most sought after products are souvenirs, such as hand woven baskets and materials and key chains, but there are only a few places that have these kind of things," said Nair.

Other countries like Bangkok or Indonesia, according to him, have a vast number of souvenir stalls. Meanwhile, Brunei only has a few, despite the fact that they are what the tourists look for when stopping in Brunei, especially for transit tourists.

"In our agency, we received more or less 1,000 tourists every month. That remains steady throughout the year, especially those coming from China and Japan," said Sugumaran.

Besides hoping for more souvenir stores, Sugumaran also said that there was a number of other things that the sultanate should pay attention to encourage tourists to stay longer.

One of them, he pointed out, would be a proper parking space allocated for tourists buses in the busy areas of the country, like Bandar Seri Begawan. "Currently, there is no proper bus parking lot," commented Sugumaran.

He also suggested that some of the souvenir shops should be able to accept the US currency. "Especially for transit passengers, who often carry only American currency. "At present, quite a number of tourists want to buy souvenir items, but because none of them has Brunei currency, they fail to purchase these local products," he added.

The Brunei Times