Foreign tourist numbers drop in November

Foreign tourist numbers drop in November

Urip Hudiono, The Jakarta Post

Foreign tourist arrivals in November 2004 dropped slightly from
the previous month amid a low season in the tourism industry, but
has still managed to maintain its on-year rising momentum, a
report said on Monday.

Around 4.12 million foreign tourists entered the country from
January to November last year -- almost 25 percent more than the
3.33 million foreign tourists who entered in the same period in
2003, said the Central Statistics Agency (BPS).

However, the number of foreign tourists in November 2004 alone
only reached 329,041, or 14.38 percent lower than the 384,310 in
October, although 7.70 percent higher than in November 2003.

"The slight drop is because November is apparently still
considered 'low season' by the tourism industry," the report
said.

The agency refused to predict the full-year figure, but the
government has said that it is confident that foreign tourist
arrivals for 2004 would exceed their earlier targets of 5 million
arrivals with foreign exchange income of US$5 billion -- an
improvement from the 4.3 million foreign tourists visiting the
country in 2003 that netted about $4 billion in income.

BPS says the better figures indicate signs of a rebound in the
country's tourism industry, which has been in the doldrums since
the 2002 Bali bombings.

For 2005 the government is projecting 6 million foreign
tourists.

Elsewhere, the report also said that the average number of
daily arrivals at the capital's Soekarno-Hatta International
Airport fell by 21.9 percent from 81,548 during October to 66,221
in November.

Arrivals at Ngurah Rai Airport in Denpasar, Bali, were down by
13 percent to 116,901, although arrivals through Polonia Airport
in Medan, North Sumatra, increased by 12.04 percent to 7,909.

For hotel occupancy the agency reported that the average level
for star-rated hotels in 10 major tourist destinations in October
decreased slightly from 48.67 percent in June to 47.69 percent.

Meanwhile, the average length of stay of foreign tourists in
star-rated hotels during October was 2.22 days, up from 2.03 days
in September 2004.