"There were around 245 million Indonesians traveling around the country in 2012 spending an average of Rp700,000 each per trip, up from Rp662,680 in 2011," Tourism Promotion Director at the Tourism and Creative Economy Ministry M. Faried said here on Sunday.
The average spending by each domestic traveler is much smaller than spending by a foreign visitor, Faried said.
However, the total spending by domestic travelers is much larger, he added.
He said the length of stay of domestic travelers declined from 4.34 days per visit on the average in 2011 to 4.27 days.
"We did not know the reasons for the shorter length of stay, but the average spending continued to increase despite the inflation," he said.
He said domestic tourists are still the largest contributors compared to foreign tourists to earning of hotel, restaurant, transport and tourist object operators.
In addition, the growing number of domestic tourists serve to strengthen the national unity, he said.
Every year, peak seasons for domestic travelers include school holidays including semester holidays and end of academic year holidays, general holidays before and after Idul Fitri and ahead of year-end and new year holidays, he said.
Another peak traveling days is every weekend totaling around 100 days per year, he said.
There are still 14 days of official annual leave for salaried people, he said.
All the holidays encourage people to travel or spend days out of homes, he said.
(AS/S012)
Editor: Suryanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2012
