BPS paints bleak picture of tourism

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) released its latest tourism statistics on Tuesday, which showed that the impact of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) had taken a heavy toll on the Indonesian tourism industry.

The agency said that the number of foreign tourist arrivals in Indonesia in May dropped sharply by 38.59 percent to 222,486 as compared to the same period last year.

BPS director Soedarti Surbakti told the press that the decline was mainly triggered by SARS, which swept the region in mid- March.

"The SARS outbreak is a regional issue that has also involved Indonesia even though we are not included among the countries heavily affected by the virus," said Soedarti.

SARS and the war in Iraq dealt a severe blow to the country's already fragile tourism sector, which had just started to recover from the impact of last year's Bali bombings.

The Office of the State Minister for Culture and Tourism said recently that if the spread of the SARS was not contained soon, Indonesia might see a plunge in the number of tourist arrivals and in foreign exchange earnings by the year-end.

The Office feared that the year-end figure was likely to reach only around 3.2 million, far lower than the target of 4.8 million.

The statistics agency, however, also revealed that the number of tourist arrivals in the country through its 13 main entry points showed an increased of 8.76 percent from 204,565 in April.

The report said that only three main gateways, Mataram port in West Nusa Tengara, Ngurah Rai airport in Bali and Tanjung Priok port in Jakarta recorded declines in tourist arrivals in May -- 24.27 percent, 12.31 percent and 5.96 percent respectively.

The BPS said that during the first five months of 2003, the number of tourists arriving in the country dropped by 23.64 percent to 1.28 million from 1.68 million in the same period last year.

It also disclosed that there was a jump in the number of domestic flight passengers during the first five months of this year of 62.3 percent to 4.07 million over the same period of last year.

The agency said that this increase was driven by the ongoing price war between airline companies.

As for international flight passengers, the BPS recorded a decline of 18.84 percent to 1.58 million as compared to the same period last year.

The BPS did not provide any details on the drop.