T

he Tourism Ministry is setting its sights on attracting 10 million foreign tourists to Indonesian soil in 2015, a 7-8 percent increase from the 9.3 million that visited this past year.

From January to October this year, the country registered 7,755,616 foreign tourists, while an estimated 808,767 visited in October, a growth rate of 12.34 percent.

'€œWe are optimistic that this year'€™s end goals can be reached,'€ said Tourism Minister Arief Yahya, as quoted by tempo.co.

The overall contribution that tourism made to the economy in 2014 is at 4.01 percent. According to data from the World Economic Forum, Indonesia currently ranks in 70thplace when it comes to the competitive ability of its tourism industry.

Nature, culture and man-made constitute the three pillars of Indonesia'€™s tourism industry, according to Arief. Nature comprises 60 percent of the country'€™s tourism, with culture at 35 percent (a category that includes heritage, religion and shopping) and man-made features taking up five percent.

By the same token, Ahman Sya, the Tourism Ministry'€™s director general of cultural and artistic creative economy, said that the tourism industry sees the target of 10 million foreign tourists as feasible. '€œCome 2019, we are targeting 20 million foreign tourists to visit Indonesia.'€ (JP)