"The figure is quite good because to achieve it we had to overcome many obstacles," he said at a function to familiarize the public with the master plan for national tourism development (RIPPARNAS) here on Thursday.
He said the figure exceeded the moderate target of 7.5 million tourist arrivals for this year.
The Tourism and Creative Economy Ministry had set three alternative tourist arrival targets for 2011, namely a pessimistic, moderate and optimistic target or 7.2 million, 7.5 million and 7.7 million respectively, he said.
Yet he expressed hope the country would achieve the optimistic target of 7.7 million tourist arrivals this year.
"Indeed the figure 7.6 million is merely a forecast. At the end of this year we will have a lot of programs in a number of border areas which are expected to increase the number of tourist arrivals," he said.
He said tourism was among the sectors which were highly sensitive to current issues and therefore the number of tourist arrivals would also depend on external factors.
Among the obstacles met in the efforts to increase the number of tourist arrivals were negative media reports on Indonesia, including bomb blasts in a number of places in Indonesia and unrest in several parts of the country, he said.
"The tourism sector is sensitive to security issues and therefore, we must deal with the security issues together," he said.
He said the ministry had set the target of tourist arrivals for 2012 at 8 million with foreign exchange earnings from the tourism sector expected to hit a record high of US$8.98 billion.
For 2011, the tourist arrival target was 7.7 million and foreign exchange earnings from tourism US$8.47 billion.(*)
Editor: Heru Purwanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
