BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Dec. 31 -- Brunei and China will launch a joint tourism year initiative to mark the start of a one-year event in tourism cooperation, Brunei's Tourism Development Department at the Ministry of Primary Resources and Tourism announced on Tuesday.

The official launch of the Brunei-China Tourism Year is scheduled on January 17, 2020, in the capital of Bandar Seri Begawan.

The Tourism Development Department said that China is one of the top source markets for tourist arrivals for Brunei with a recorded number of 43,000 tourist arrivals (July 2019). In 2018, Brunei saw an increase of 21.1 percent with 65,563 tourist arrivals from China in comparison to 2017 with Chinese tourist arrivals of 54,125.

With the launch of the Brunei-China Year of Tourism 2020, together with direct and increased air connectivity between the two countries, such as the newly launched route of Royal Brunei Airlines (RB) to Beijing, it is hoped that tourist traffic and economic growth between the two countries will be boosted.

According to the Tourism Development Department, the Brunei-China Year of Tourism 2020 aims at providing a platform to strengthen tourism cooperation through people-to-people and cultural exchanges, enhance bilateral cooperation, capacity building and furthering collaboration and partnership between the two countries. The year-long event is also an opportunity to build wider business and trade connections in other areas beyond tourism.