Seribu Islands get fewer tourists

Seribu Islands get fewer tourists

JAKARTA: The number of local and foreign tourists visiting
Kepulauan Seribu, or the Thousand Islands, continues to decline
due to lingering security concerns and the battered economy, an
executive said on Tuesday.

The chairman of the Kepulauan Seribu's tourist association,
Didin Djunaedi, attributed the fall in the number of foreign
tourists to heightened political concerns and the string of
bombings across Indonesia over the past two years.

"The decline in the number of local tourists is because of the
cost of accommodation and transportation in the wake of the fuel
price increases that occur almost every year," Didin said.

Tourist visits to the regency peaked in 1995 with 143,722
visitors. That number fell to 133,219 in 1996 and 105,683 in
1997.

In 1998, the year of the reform movement, the number plunged
to 81,125 visitors. The average number of visitors over the five
years up to 2002 was less than 15,000.--Antara