"A total of 2.23 tourists came by air directly through the Ngurah Rai Airport while the remaining 38,644 people come via the sea port," said the head of the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) of Bali, Adi Nugroho, in Denpasar on Monday.
The Bali Provincial Tourism Office has set a target of attracting as many as 4.2 million foreign tourists to the Dewata Island this year. In 2015, Bali received 4.001 million people, 6.24 percent more than previous year when 3.76 million people had arrived. The numbers are slightly above the target set at 4 million tourists.
Adi Nugroho said the month of June 2016 witnessed 405,835 people visiting Bali, 12.83 percent more than those who visited in the same month in 2015, and 2.86 percent more than the number of visitors coming in May this year.
Of the ten countries from where tourists mainly come to Bali, seven have seen a major increase in the numbers. The number of tourists arriving from the other three has decreased.
The seven countries from where significantly larger number of tourists arrived included Australia, that registered an increase of 10.43 percent, as 486,087 people arrived between January and June 2015 compared to 536,767 people arriving in the same period in 2016.
China came second as tourist numbers rose by 35.85 per cent, from 341,559 to 464,002. Similarly, 4.97 percent more Japanese tourists arrived with numbers going up from 104,246 to 109,424.
Great Britain contributed the fourth largest chunk of foreign tourists. The number of tourists from that country increased by 42.45 percent, up from 68,977 people arriving from January to June 2015 as 98,311 arrived in the same period in 2016.
While 59,509 tourists came from India in the same period in 2015, the number rose by 55.83 percent since 92,731 tourists came from the South Asian country this year in that period in 2016. The number of tourists from the United States grew by 32.50 percent, from 63,097 to 83,606 people, just as French tourists number increased by 26.79 percent from 53,128 to 67,362.
Adi Nugroho added that three other countries from where lesser number of tourists arrived were Malaysia, South Korea and Singapore. Malaysia contributed 9.08 percent less tourists. Compared to 98,658 tourists who came from Malaysia from January to June 2015, only 89,699 people arrived in the same period in 2016.
South Koreans number dropped 6.50 percent from 75,902 tourists to 70,971 while number of tourists from Singapore slipped 8.41 percent from 75,580 people to 69,224, said Adi Nugroho.
Reported by IK Sutika
EDITED BY INE.
Editor: Suryanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2016
