Tourism may become largest forex earner

Tourism may become largest forex earner

JAKARTA (JP): The government predicts that the tourist
industry will be the country's largest foreign exchange earner by
the end of the Sixth Five Year Development Plan period in 1999,
five years ahead of the previous prediction.

Minister of Tourism, Post and Telecommunications Joop Ave told
reporters after a hearing yesterday with Commission V of the
House of Representatives, for tourist and transportation, that he
believed the estimation is based on the growth of the tourism
industry over the past few years, compared with the export growth
of oil and gas, textiles and timber, the country's current
largest foreign exchange earners.

The government is committed to attracting at least 11 million
tourists to Indonesia per annum, with total spending of $15
billion by 2005.

Data from the Central Bureau of Statistics show that the
number of tourist arrivals increased by an average of 19.72
percent per annum between 1990 and 1995, while the country's
revenue from their spending rose 26.67 percent a year.

In 1990, 2.17 million foreign tourists visited the country,
spending $2.1 billion. In 1995, the number of tourist arrivals
rose by 98.58 percent to 4.32 million, while spending rose to
$5.22 billion.

The data also show that the tourist industry rose from the
fifth largest non-oil foreign exchange earner in 1995 to third in
1992. In 1985, the tourist industry, with foreign exchange
revenue of $525 million, ranked fifth behind timber with revenue
of $1.19 billion, rubber with $726 million, textiles with $559
million and coffee with $556 million.

Last year, Indonesia earned $9.43 billion from the exports of
oil and gas, $5.58 billion from textiles and $4.57 billion from
timber.

About 6.5 million foreign tourists are expected to visit the
country in 1998, spending more than $8.9 billion.

The published foreign exchange revenue from the tourist
industry, however, is a gross figure which must be cut by about
50 percent to compensate for the spending of Indonesians
traveling abroad.

Data from the International Monetary Fund, compiled by the
research and development agency of the Ministry of Tourism, Post
and Telecommunications show that Indonesia received a net revenue
of $1.96 billion from 3.06 million visitors who spent a total of
$3.27 billion in the country in 1992.

Indonesians going abroad in 1992 were estimated to spend $1.31
billion in foreign countries.

The data for 1993 was 3.4 million tourist arrivals spending
$3.27 billion. Total foreign exchange earned from the tourist
industry in 1993 exceeded $2.39 billion, while Indonesians going
abroad in that year spent an estimated $1.59 billion.

In 1994, 4.06 million foreign tourists visited the country
spending $4.78 billion. But the country is estimated to get a net
revenue of only $2.88 billion because there were about two
million Indonesians going overseas, spending some $1.9 billion
that year. (icn)