Foreign Tourists visit in April 2015 Reached the Highest Figure

Foreign Tourists visit in April 2015 Reached the Highest Figure

Total foreign tourists visiting Indonesia in April 2015 reached 749 882 foreign tourists or grew 3.24 percent compared with April the previous year by 726 332 tourists. While the cumulative January-April 2015, the number of foreign tourists reached 3.04917 million foreign tourists, up 3.44 percent over the same period last year of 2,947,684 foreign tourists.

The growth of foreign tourists in April and in January-April 2015 despite slowing down as it is still below the target of 7 percent – 8 percent per month, but when viewed in its performance was encouraging. Growth in April 2015 recorded the highest during the past 10 years. Similarly, the cumulative growth in January-April 2015 is still above the trend line foreign tourists visit in the previous 3 years.

Based on the data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) and the Center for Data and Information, the Ministry of Tourism, foreign tourists visit in April 2015 from a number of main market to grow positively, among others; China (+ 17.86 percent), Hong Kong (+ 16.42 percent), Japan (+ 11.14 percent), India (+14.41 percent), the UK (+ 8.22 percent), South Korea (+7 , 91 percent), France (+ 5.51 percent), Malaysia (+ 5.26 percent), the Philippines (+ 3.50 percent), and Singapore (+ 2.49 percent).

While tourists from markets suffered negative growth, among others; United States (-7.55 percent), Middle East Countries (-25.38 percent), Russia (-23.81 percent), the Netherlands (-15.23 percent), Germany (-11.99 percent), Thailand (-10.07 percent), Australia (-0.52 percent), and Taiwan (-0.27 percent).

Minister of Tourism Arief Yahya said, the trend of the growth of tourism has improved, although in the first four months (January to April) in 2015 slightly slowed down 4 percent, but conditions is expected to be temporary (seasonal) because it coincides with the low season.

Middle East Market

Minister of Tourism Arief Yahya argued, the government (Ministry of Tourism-Red) to give serious attention to the Middle East market, whose growth indicates a significant an increasing trend. Last year the growth of tourists from the Middle East of 26 percent  with a total of 170,000 foreign tourists tourists.

According to Arief, Middle East tourists, have characteristics, which visited in the family group with the period of stay is longer and have higher expenditures between 1,400 dollars to 1,700 dollars per person per visit (visit). While tourists from other regions around 1,142 US dollars / visit.

To increase the visit of tourists from the Middle East, Minister of Tourism continued, Indonesia  actively participated in the international tourism market among other which recently took part in the Arabian Travel Market (ATM) Dubai which takes place 4-7 May 2015. On that occasion, Minister of Tourism also met with a number of potential local investors, among others: Tasweek, Emaar Properties, Trump Hotel Collection, Damac Properties, as well as the Paramount Hotel & Resort to offer investment opportunities in the tourism sector in a number of Special Economic Zones (SEZ) of tourism, namely; Tanjung Lesung Tourism Resort (Banten), Mandalika Tourism Resort (NTB), and Bintan (Riau)

The high interest of tourists from the Middle East for visits to Indonesia, among others can be seen from the increasing the direct flight from the big cities to the main destinations in Indonesia, as performed by Emirates Airlines, which plans to open a direct flight route from Dubai to Bali (1x per day) at the beginning of June..  (Puskompublik Kemenpariwisata/ES)