Jakarta, (ANTARA News) - Culture and Tourism Minister Jero wacik said the number of foreign tourists who arrived in Indonesia in the first semester of 2008 was estimated at 3.1 million.
"I estimate that there are about 3.1 million foreign tourists who have arrived in the first semester of 2008. This is only an estimate because data issued by the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) only covered the January-May period," the minister said here on Monday.
He made the estimate on the sidelines of a get-together with 36 finalists of the Indonesian Miss Tourism competition in the ministry`s "Sapta Pesona" Hall.
The minister said that the BPS data indicated the arrivals of foreign tourists increased by about 14 percent per month.
"With the average increase of 14 percent per month, the number of foreign tourist arrivals in Indonesia at the end of the year would reach 6.3 to 6.4 million," he said.
He said that therefore the government should continue to promote the country`s tourism in order to achieve its target of seven million foreign tourist arrivals this year.
The minister launched Visit Indonesia Year 2008 last January setting a target of foreign tourist arrivals at seven million.
Last February, in a hearing with the Tourism Commission of the House of Representatives, the minister said that there were 5.5 foreign tourist arrivals in 2007. Of the visitors, 1.46 million came from Singapore, 941,202 from Malaysia, 593,784 from Japan, 313,881 from Australia, 528,171 from Europe and Russia, 423,098 from South Korea, 335,172 from china and Hong Kong, 154,846 from the United States, 151,704 from India, 45,735 from the Middle East, 24,735 from Thailand and 209,612 from other countries.
Earlier, the BPS said that the number of foreign tourist arrivals in Indonesia in May 2008 stood at 509,000, or an increase by about 10.85 percent compared with a month earlier when the figure was 459.130. (*)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment