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.