TOURISM - The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) recorded a 21.57 percent increase in foreign tourist arrivals in July, to 1.35 million from 1.11 million in the previous month.
The sharpest increases in arrivals occurred at Adi Sucipto International Airport in Yogyakarta (107.23 percent), Adi Sumarno International Airport in Surakarta, Central Java, (79.39 percent) and Sutan Hasanuddin Airport in Makassar, South Sulawesi (66.16 percent).
“There were a number of events in Yogyakarta and Surakarta that boosted the arrivals,” said BPS head Suhariyanto in Jakarta on Monday.
The agency recorded that 1. 35 million tourists arrived at 19 main gates – 1.13 million were regular tourists, while 75,000 were categorized as specific tourists.
Meanwhile, 208,900 tourists entered Indonesia through other gates, including 170,700 tourists who entered through checkpoints in border areas, while 38,200 tourists entered Indonesia through other gates, including Batam, Riau Islands.
With 214,500 arrivals, China was the largest contributor of tourists, followed by Australia with 117,600, Singapore (109,200), Malaysia (95,400 tourists) and Japan with 48,700 tourists.
The July figure was 30.83 percent higher than the 1.03 million tourists who arrived in the corresponding month of 2016.
The total figure for tourist arrivals from January to July, 2017 amounted to 7.81 million, a 23.53 increase compared with the 6.32 million in the corresponding period last year.
The tourists stayed in Indonesia for 1.89 days in July on average.
