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Rinjani sees higher number of climbers
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High expectations -- Mount Rinjani National Park (TNGR) head Agus Budi Santosa speaks to journalists on the sidelines of Rinjani Clean Up, a program aiming to clean up garbage on the mountain, in Sembalun district, East Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, on Saturday. (JP/Panca Nugraha)
T
he lure of Rinjani, Indonesia’s second highest mountain after Kerinci, has continued to attract visitors. Mount Rinjani National Park (TNGR) records at least 89,000 tourists who have climbed the active volcano on Lombok Island, West Nusa Tenggara, this year.
This figure showed an increase compared to last year, during which 68,000 tourists were recorded to have climbed Rinjani.
“Since its trekking route reopened in April through December, the number of visitors climbing Rinjani has reached more than 89,000, more than 42 percent of whom were foreign tourists. It increased from last year’s count, although this year, we closed the mountain several times because of increases in volcanic activity of its sub-volcano, Mt Barujari,” TNGR head Agus Budi Santosa told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.
He was speaking on the sidelines of Rinjani Clean Up, a program aiming to clean up garbage on the mountain in Sembalun district, East Lombok.
Agus said that in terms of tourist visits, Rinjani was still behind Mt Bromo in East Java, which recorded up to one million visits per year. “But Rinjani is the only mountain, in which its foreign visits can account for more than 40 percent. The number of foreign tourists in Bromo is only five percent,” he said.
Foreign tourists visiting Rinjani are mostly from European countries, such as France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and the UK, TNGR data shows. There have been increases in the number of visitors from Asian countries, such as Japan, Korea, Malaysia and Singapore. Meanwhile, domestic visitors are mostly from Bali, Jakarta, Surabaya (East Java) and Yogyakarta. (ebf)
