Foreign tourist arrivals reach a new record in Indonesia

JAKARTA - Indonesia tourism is turning increasingly dynamic according to the latest figures released last week by the Central Office of Statistics.  In June, foreign tourist arrivals rose sharply thanks to strong growth from travellers coming out of the Middle East. The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) indicated that the number of foreign arrivals grew in June by 13.52% to reach 789,594 visitors, the highest monthly figure in the history of tourism. The previous highest figure was recorded in December last year when the number of foreign tourist arrivals reached 766,966 visitors.
Indonesia Tourism and Creative Economy Minister Mari Elka Pangestu indicated that aggressive promotion activities and direct sales in 16 priority countries, including in the Middle East, contributed to the significant growth in foreign tourist arrivals. Visitors from the UAE were effectively up by 122.4% and from Saudi Arabia by 34.2%. The Minister puts the strong performance to increased air capacities from Middle East carriers to and from Indonesia. Special tourism programs that complies with Islamic law are due to be launched before the end of the year.
China also continues to outperform with a growth of 54.2%.
Among Indonesia tourism priority markets are Australia, China, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Singapore. “This is the highest monthly figure we have ever recorded. By looking at this figure, it means that at least we can reach our moderate target to bring in 8.6 million tourists by the end of this year,” explained the Minister to local media last week.
She remains however confident that Indonesia could finally reach its target of 9 million international travellers by the end of the year. Europe performed relatively well despite the ongoing crisis in many countries. Russian travellers were up by 25% over 2012 while Germans and Dutch grew in June by 15% each. 
In total, the number of foreign visitors to Indonesia in the first half of 2013 grew by 7.18 % to 4.15 million from 3.87 million in the same period last year, the BPS said. Compared to May, June’s figure experienced a rise of 6.91 percent from 678,415 visitors.

Sourced: TravelDailyNews