Tourist numbers down in February: BPS

Leony Aurora, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

The number of tourists arriving through the country's 13 main entry points was down in February from the same period the previous year, the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) said.

In February, 309,006 travelers visited Indonesia, a nearly 10 percent drop from the 321,576 visitors recorded the previous year, BPS reported on Friday.

Tourist figures for the first two months of the year were down slightly to some 657,000 visitors from 679,900 in the same period in 2004, or about 3.28 percent lower.

The beaches of Bali, however, proved impossible to resist, with 105,402 tourist arrivals on the resort island in February, from fewer than 90,000 the previous year.

Investment island Batam saw a drop in the number of foreign guests to 83,677 in February, from 123,263 in the same period in 2004.

According to a BPS analysis, the government's visa-on-arrival policy had little to do with the decline in tourist figures.

The controversial visa policy was introduced in February last year, cutting the number of countries eligible for visa-on- arrival from 60 to 21. The government waives visas for tourists from nine other countries -- mostly members of the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations -- on the basis of reciprocity.

State Minister for Culture and Tourism Jero Wacik has said the government is considering granting more countries the visa-on- arrival facility.

The average length of stay of foreigner tourists in star-rated hotels also declined in January this year to 3.44 days, compared to 3.63 days in the same period the previous year. Foreign tourists stayed an average of one day longer in star-rated hotels in North Sumatra and East Java, while they stayed a day less in West Sumatra, Central Java and Yogyakarta.

Indonesia's tourist sector has struggled since the Bali bombings in 2002.

An explosion in front of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta last October proved to be another blow, prompting the U.S., the United Kingdom and Australia to issue travel warnings for the country.

The tourism office hopes to attract six million visitors from abroad this year. According to government data, 5.3 million people traveled from abroad to the archipelago last year, generating approximately US$5.3 billion in foreign exchange.