Most of the Australian tourists came by the Jetstar airlines, which recently started a Lombok-Perth flight route."
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - A total of 765,607 foreign tourists visited Indonesia in March, raising the number of tourist arrivals in the country in the first quarter to 2,221,352.

This represented a 10.07 percent increase compared to the same period last year, Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy Mari Elka Pangestu said here on Friday.

The average monthly tourist arrivals of 740,000, which was a record, shored up the governments confidence to achieve the tourist arrival target of 9.3 million-9.5 million in 2014, she added.

"Tourist arrivals in the first three months of 2014 showed a positive trend, which is expected to continue until the end of the year. We are optimistic about exceeding the target of tourist arrivals in 2014," she said.

Data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) showed tourist arrivals through the three entry points of Soekarno-Hatta Airport, Ngurah Rai Airport and Batam grew 6,48 percent, 14.42 percent, and 7.50 percent, respectively, in the first quarter of 2014 as compared to the same period last year.

Meanwhile, the arrivals in the entry point of the Lombok International Airport in West Nusa Tenggara grew significantly by 214.7 percent, the Adisucipto Airport in Yogyakarta rose 44.0 percent, and the Husein Sastranegara Airport in Bandung increased 23.03 percent.

The number of tourist arrivals via the Lombok International Airport in the January-March 2014 quarter reached 15,954, led by Australian tourists of 4,962.

"Most of the Australian tourists came by the Jetstar airlines, which recently started a Lombok-Perth flight route," she said.

Meanwhile, Malaysia led tourist arrivals through the Husein Sastranegara Airport in Bandung in the first quarter, which reached 52,280.

Malaysian tourists also ranked first in the list of tourist arrivals via Adisucipto Airport in Yogyakarta, which reached 23,221, including 9,730 from Malaysia and 3,515 from Singapore.

Most of the Malaysian and Singapore tourists traveled to Indonesia by low-cost airlines.

(Reporting by Hanni Sofia/Uu.INE/KR-BSR/A014)

Editor: Priyambodo RH
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