"They mostly came via Ngurah Rai airport, Bali, directly from their country. Only 8,095 of them came by sea," head of Bali`s Central Bureau of Statistics, I Gede Suarsa, said here Thursday.
He said the country down under was one of the top ten countries supplying tourists to Bali, the island of the Gods.
Australia contributed 24.61 percent of total foreign tourists to Bali or 2.35 million visitors during the January-November 2010 period, or up by 8.48 percent over the same period in 2009 which when the number only totaled 2.16 million people, Gede Suarsa noted.
The factors making more Australians visit Bali are because they considered the Indonesian resort island as their `second home`, and Australia`s economy is getting better, he said.
Gede Suarsa said of the ten countries supplying the biggest number of travelers who enjoy the unique art and culture as well as natural beauty of the island`s panorama, seven had given significant increase and only three showed a decrease in the number of tourists to Bali.
Besides Australia, the other seven countries that contribute the biggest number of tourists to Bali are Malaysia (12.92 percent), an increase from 120,199 to 135,726 people, and Taiwan whose number of tourists rose by 4.79 percent from 111,146 to 115,470 people.
The number of South Korean tourists increased 0.47 percent from 115,026 to 115,570 people, that of Britain was up by 3.34 percent from 85,050 to 87,892 people, that of Singapore rose 70.23 percent from 47,409 to 80,703 people and that of Germany stepped up by 14.21 percent from 69,906 to 79,839 people.(*)
Editor: Jafar M Sidik
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