Head of BPS Suhariyanto told reporters the Sam Ratulangi airport of North Sulawesi recorded the highest growth of 100.89 percent. The surge in the number of visits to North Sulawesi followed the opening of direct flights between Manado and a number of cities in China.
"The Sam Ratulangi airport recorded the highest growth although the number of visits of foreign tourist dropped 7.42 percent in January compared with December, 2016," Suhariyanto said , adding December is holiday season.
He said Chinese tourists accounted for the largest number of the 1.03 million visits.
Chinese tourists accounted for 200,197 visits or the largest, followed by 116,791 visits by Singaporeans.
Australians normally the largest number of visitors to Indonesia, accounted only for the third largest with number of visits of 100,858, Malaysia 97,370 visits and India 38,668 visit.
Around 930,934 of the visits were recorded by 19 main gates and among the 19 main gates, Ngurah Rai of Denpasar recorded the largest number of visits reaching 452,700 arrivals,Suhariyanto said.
The number of visits via Ngurah Rai rose 31.72 percent from the same month in 2016.
The countrys largest airport Soekarno-Hatta of Jakarta recorded a 23.28 percent increase yoy in tourist arrivals to 189,200 in January, 2017
Meanwhile the occupancy rate of star rated hotels in 27 provinces averaged 50.92 percent in January, 2017 or an increase of 1.59 percentage points from a year earlier , but down 5.58 percentage points from December, 2016.
The length of stay of foreign tourists in Indonesia recorded by star rated hotels in the 27 provinces averaged 1.94 days per visit - or an increase 0.11 percentage point from January 2016.(*)
Editor: Heru Purwanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2017
