The global economic slowdown has forced the tourism ministry to revise down its targets for numbers of foreign tourist arrivals for 2008 and 2009 by 9 percent and 20 percent, respectively.
Director general for marketing at the Culture and Tourism Ministry, Sapta Nirwandar, said Wednesday the number of foreign tourists was not likely to meet the 2008 Visit Indonesia Year target of 7 million, and would probably only touch "the moderate target" of 6.4 million.
The 2009 foreign tourist arrival target of 8 million visitors also has to undergo correction to "realistic" figures of around 6.4 million visitors, he added.
"The global economic crisis has started to have an impact. With the Asian Beach Games in October and other events in November, we're still expecting to see an increase in the number of foreign tourists compared with that in the same period last year.
"However, with the looming crisis, I'm afraid we will not have the expected peak of foreign tourist arrivals in December," Sapta said.
According to recent data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), the number of foreign tourist arrivals in Indonesia as of September 2008 stood at around 4.57 million, a 12.19 percent increase from 4.07 million in the same period last year.
If the government wants to maintain its early target of 7 million foreign visitors, it must therefore attract 2.43 million additional foreign visitors in the remaining three months of 2008, which is unlikely.
Sapta said that in the last quarter of the year, the Culture and Tourism Ministry was strengthening its partnership with a number of parties, including domestic and foreign airlines, banks and film festival organizers, as part of a marketing strategy to boost the number of foreign visitors.
He also said the ministry was relying heavily on 28 international events scheduled to be held in the country from October to November to help reach the target.
The events include the ASEAN Broadcasting Union forum, the Asia Pacific ICT Awards, the International Food Expo, the 22nd Asian Stamp Exhibition, the Incentive Tour China, Korea and India, and the 2nd International Conference on Intellectual Property and the Creative Industries, the last of which will be held in Bali from Dec. 2 to 4.
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