Foreign tourist arrivals rose by 12 percent in March: BPS

Foreign tourist arrivals rose by 12 percent in March: BPS

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The number of foreign tourists arriving through Indonesia's 13
main entry points rose by nearly 12 percent in March from a month
earlier, the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) said on Monday.

In its latest statistics of the country's tourism sector, the
agency reported that 345,964 travellers had visited Indonesia in
March, up from the 309,006 visitors recorded the previous month.

But the tourism sector has yet to rejoice, as both figures
combined with January's 348,646 visitors, would only make the
country's foreign tourist arrivals for the first quarter at
1,003,616 visitors, down 2.96 percent from 1,034,236 in the same
period last year.

The tourism office expects to be able to attract six million
foreign visitors this year. Last year, about 5.3 million foreign
tourists traveled to the archipelago, generating some US$5.3
billion in foreign exchange.

Indonesia's tourist sector has struggled since the Bali
bombings in 2002, and the bombings at the J.W. Marriott Hotel and
the Australian Embassy in Jakarta in 2003 and 2004 respectively.

Effects of the recent Asian tsunami disaster could prove to be
another blow to the country's tourism sector, although tourist
associations said that Bali could attract tourists who are
diverting their visits from tourist destinations in neighboring
countries affected by the disaster.

Elsewhere, BPS also reported that the resort island of Bali
continued to be the country's main tourist magnet, recording
121,457 visitors in March, from 105,402 in February.

The capital of Jakarta and investment island Batam also
managed to sustain and increase their number of visitors, each
recording 96,898 and 83,811 tourists, respectively.

Although visitors to North Sulawesi's Manado still recorded at
a little over a thousand, the province could prove to be a rising
tourist destination in the future, as it saw a 37.3 percent surge
in foreign tourists, from 793 people in February to 1,089 last
month.

Indeed, one of the province's main tourism attractions is the
popular offshore snorkeling on Bunaken islands.

Meanwhile, the average length of stay of foreign tourists in
star-rated hotels in 10 tourist destinations throughout the
country declined to 3.26 days in February, as compared to 3.44
days in the same period the previous month.

The hotels' occupation rate, however, declined to an average
of 46.48 percent, from 48.22 percent in January.