The number of international tourist arrivals through the main entry gates in the period from January to August 2021 stood at just 81,292, BPS head Margo Yuwono noted here on Monday.
“This (increase) is easy to understand because last year, there was still a pandemic so the number of international tourist (visits) in the same period last year was only 81,292 visits," he said.
Meanwhile, according to him, the number of international tourist visits in August 2022 alone reached 510.25 thousand.
This figure reflected an increase of 6.98 percent compared to July 2022, and showed a massive growth of 28,727.46 percent compared to August 2021.
Despite the significant jump, the figure recorded in August 2022 was still far lower compared to 2019, that is, before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, he pointed out.
"In the same period of 2019, the number of international tourist visits in January–August reached 8.56 million," he explained.
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Australia, Singapore, and Malaysia were the top three countries of origin for international tourists visiting Indonesia in August and the January–August period this year, BPS noted.
In August, tourists from Australia accounted for up to 16.5 percent or 84.1 thousand visits, tourists from Singapore 62.5 thousand visits (12.3 percent), and tourists from Malaysia 46.8 thousand visits (9.2 percent).
In the January–August period, the number of tourist visits from Australia reached 286.9 thousand (16.6 percent of the total visits), Singapore 215.5 thousand (12.4 percent), and Malaysia 154.2 thousand (3.9 percent).
Yuwono expressed the hope that foreign tourist visits will recover to the levels seen before the pandemic because the tourism sector has a great impact on the economy.
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Translator: Ade Irma, Raka Adji
Editor: Suharto
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