Number of Foreign Tourists Visiting Indonesia Increases

The number of foreign tourists (tourists) who came to Indonesia has increased from the previous year.

JAKARTA, INDEPHEDIA.com - Compared to the same period of 2017 which amounted to 14.04 million people, the number of foreign tourist visits to Indonesia during 2018 reached 15.81 million people, up 12.58 percent.

"We hope that the number of foreign tourists can continue to increase. Because this is one of the mainstays to encourage the national economy," said Head of BPS Suharyanto, in Jakarta, Friday (1/2/2019).

Based on the data, the number of foreign tourists visiting consisted of tourists visiting the air entrance as many as 10.08 million visits, by sea as many as 3.22 million visits and through the land entrance as many as 2.51 million visits.

According to BPS data, the biggest visit by air, namely at Ngurah Rai Airport, Bali, was 6.02 million visits, up 6.06 percent compared to the previous year, followed by Soekarno Hatta Airport at 2.8 million visits, up 2.30 percent compared to the previous year.

The biggest visit by sea occurred in Batam at 1.88 million visits, up 20.61 percent, followed by Tanjung Uban at 523 thousand visits, up 40.77 percent.

While the biggest visit by land doorstep occurred in Jayapura, which amounted to 104 thousand visits, down 16.78 percent, followed by Atambua at 85 thousand visits, up 34 percent.

During 2018, foreign tourists coming from the ASEAN region had the highest percentage increase, which was 20.60 percent compared to the same period the previous year. The Middle East region has the largest percentage reduction of 6.13 percent.

Most foreign tourists visiting Indonesia in 2018 came from Malaysia with 2.50 million visits, China with 2.14 million visits, and Singapore with 1.77 million visits. (**)