Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The number of tourist arrivals in Indonesia rose 15.54 percent to 12.023 million in 2016 from a year earlier, according to the Central Statistics Agency (BPS).

The figure is 23 thousand ahead of the target of 12 million for 2016 set in the roadmap to achieve the target of 20 million tourist arrivals in 2019, the agency said in a statement released on Thursday.

The 12.023 million is obtained from 11.519 million which is reported by BPS, and 504 thousand in the extrapolation from Jan-Sep 2016, which has not yet been incorporated to the total tourist arrivals.

"BPS has agreed to the extrapolation in the Jan-Sep 2016 period at 504 thousand, and has brought it to the Forum of Statistics Community (FMS) on Jan 8, 2017. However, FMS has not recommended the 504 thousand. Both BPS and FMS have no objection to the Tourism Ministry using the real figure of 12.023 million," the Tourism Ministrys deputy for the development of foreign marketing I Gde Pitana said.

He added that the extrapolation figure of 504 thousand is valid because it is calculated using the Big Data Mobile Positioning Data (MPD) technology.

The MPD is only used to calculate tourist arrivals in 19 districts, 46 sub-districts through cross-border areas, or border check points which still have no immigration check points.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
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