Indonesia has been able to attract more than 1 million foreign tourists this year in the month of October raising hopes for the realization of the country’s goal for attaining its annual target of luring the maximum number of international tourists.
Reputed as the largest archipelago of the world, Indonesia succeeded in drawing 1.04 million tourists during October.
This figure marks an increase of about 18.55 from the previous year. However, this figure marked a slight rise from the figure recorded in September 2016 that is about 3.38%, as revealed by the data from the Central Statistics Agency or BPS.
Right from January till October, this island nation welcomed 9.4 million tourists.
This indicates that the country is very close to achieving its official target of 12 million tourists for this year.
The general trend that has been continuing since the last few months is Chinese dominating the foreign tourist arrivals in this part of the world. As many as 1,21,880 visitors is reported to have arrived from China during October 2016. Accounting for 12.43% of the total number of foreign tourists, China surpassed the traditional leading countries including Australia and Malaysia.
I Gde Pitana, the assistant of the Tourism Ministry for overseas promotion said that the aggressive promotions of the nation abroad have triggered the arrival of high number of international tourists.
He also went on to add that the role of the private sector played a key role in luring a large number of Chinese tourists to Indonesia.
Furthermore, he stated that the free visa policy was an additional factor in promoting Indonesia to foreign lands. Also, he said that the travel agents, tour operators and airline personnel of the country were very keen to promote Indonesia in China since they know China so well.
Recently, the government of Indonesia conducted promotional campaigns at the CITM or Chinese International Travel Mart in Shanghai and also at the World Travel Mart or WTM in London.
The current administration of Indonesia is determined to boost the number of foreign tourist arrivals to 20 million within 2019.
This initiative is believed to positively impact the local industries of the region.
