Foreign tourist numbers drop 6%

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

With a dip in foreign tourist arrivals already evident this year, as compared to the year before, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism has allocated US$10 million to promote tourism for next year, higher than some $6 million set aside this year.

Foreign tourists visiting the country between January and October reached 3.5 million, about 7 percent lower than the figure booked in the same period in the previous year.

At the current pace, "foreign tourist arrivals this year would reach about 5 million, which will be some 6 percent lower than 2005's 5.23 million tourists," an report from the ministry released on Thursday showed.

The government's official full-year target is 6 million.

The fund would be taken from some Rp 600 billion (around $60 million) the ministry received from the state budget, said Minister of Culture and Tourism Jero Wacik.

With the increase in the promotion allocation, Jero was optimistic that next year would see tourist arrivals increase to 5.5 million.

"The Malaysian government spent $60 million this year to promote tourism and managed to attract 12 million overseas tourists, while Indonesia needed only $6 million to lure 5 million", he replied when asked the reason for his optimisms.

The efforts to attract tourists next year would be concentrated on countries with a lot of potential such as India, China and those in the Middle East.

Those countries have all recently been granted the visa-on- arrival (VOA) facility from Indonesia.