Foreign tourist arrivals up 14.57%

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Foreign tourist arrivals increased by 14.57 percent in May, with the country's largely peaceful election process being credited for the rise, the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) said on Thursday.

The agency said the number of foreign visitors during the month rose to more than 369,000 from over 322,000 in the previous month.

During the first five months of this year, the number of foreign visitors jumped by 34.32 percent to 1.73 million compared to 1.28 million in the same period of last year, the BPS report said.

"The Indonesian tourism sector has shown a strong improvement during the past five months. In the same period last year, foreign tourist arrivals declined sharply because of the Bali bombing, the SARS epidemic, and the U.S. attack on Iraq," the BPS report says.

The government is targeting 5 million foreign tourist this year, compared to 4.4 million last year.

A number of experts have said peaceful elections would bode well for the tourist sector.

The country in April conducted the legislative election and on Monday will hold its first direct presidential election. A second round will be held in September for the top-two polling candidates if no candidate wins an outright majority on Monday.

Their had been fears earlier the country's election process would be marred by violence.

Tourism is a major foreign exchange earner for Indonesia, the biggest economy in Southeast Asia, and the sector employs a large number of people.

On occupancy, the BPS said the average rate of star-rated hotels in 10 major tourist destination areas in April rose slightly, by 0.32 percent to 43.56 percent, from 43.24 percent in March.

The average length of stay of foreign tourists in star-rated hotels during the month was about 2.18 days, the same as in March. -- JP