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More Chinese, fewer Australians visit Indonesia
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Chinese tourists stand in front of a souvenir stall in Bali. The government has announced collaboration with Chinese Internet giant Baidu in a bid to attract more Chinese tourists to the archipelago. (thejakartapost.com/Raditya Margi)
February has seen an increase in the number of visitors from China but a decrease in arrivals from Australia.
Chinese arrivals to Indonesia increased to 161,828 in February, up 12.5 percent from the same month last year, data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) show.
“Garuda Indonesia has opened a direct flight from Denpasar to Shanghai. That affected the number of Chinese tourists visiting Indonesia,” BPS head Suryamin said at the agency’s headquarters on Friday.
Meanwhile, 75,331 visitors arrived from Australia in February, an 8.2 percent drop on the year.
According to the BPS data, China topped the list of countries of origin for people visiting Indonesia in February, followed by Singapore (110,261 arrivals), Malaysia (98,331), Australia (75,331) and Japan (42,186).
In total, 888,309 foreigners arrived in the archipelago in February, including 25,129 coming for work purposes. The total number marks a rise of 9.1 percent compared to 814,300 foreign arrivals in January.
In the first two months of 2016, 710,687 foreigners arrived at Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali, a hike of 14.3 over the same period last year.
Meanwhile, 317,820 foreigners arrived at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, Banten, marking a drop of 5.55 percent compared with last year.
“This is important, because foreign tourists could boost the economic situation in the country. It could also impact other sectors [outside tourism] as it could create multiplier effects,” Suryamin said. (vps/bbn)
