Indonesia`s tourist arrivals surpass 7 mln target last year

Wed, 2 February 2011

ANTARA News Agency

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - More than 7.002 million foreign tourists visited Indonesia last year, surpassing the government-set target of 7 million, the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) said.

Compared to the year before, the number of tourist arrivals last year represented a 10.74 percent increase, BPS Chief Rusman Heriawan said here on Tuesday.

In December 2010 alone, more than 644.2 thousand foreign tourists visited the country, up 11.43 percent from a month earlier or 3.01 percent from the same period the year before, he said.

Over 6.32 million tourists visited Indonesia in 2009.

Rusman said the number of tourist arrivals through the country`s three largest airports increased last year. The three airports were Ngurah Rai Airport in Bali which recorded 2.54 million tourist arrivals, Soekarno-Hatta Airport in Jakarta 1.82 million and Hang Nadim Airport in Batam 1.007 million.

"The conducive climate throughout 2010 helped increase the number of tourist arrivals particularly through Bali, Jakarta and Batam," he said.

In total, the foreign tourists visiting the country last year spent an estimated US$7.6 billion, up 20.63 percent from the year before when the figure was recorded at US$6.3 billion, he said.

Meanwhile, the occupancy rates of star-rated hotels in 17 of the country`s 33 provinces in December 2010 averaged 53.84 percent, up 3.59 points from a month earlier or 1.31 points from December 2009, he said.

"On average the foreign tourists stayed at star-rated hotels in the 17 provinces for 1.99 days in December 2010, up 0.03 percent compared to December 2009," he said.