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espite Mount Agung’s eruption in Bali, the country’s most popular tourist destination, Indonesia welcomed a higher number of tourists in the January-November period of 2017 than the same period in the previous year, sparking new hope for a rebound in tourist visits.

The number of foreign tourist visits in the first nine months of 2017 surged 21.84 percent year-on-year (yoy) to 12.68 million from the previous year, the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) announced on Tuesday.

This was despite a monthly drop of 5.86 percent last November from the corresponding month in 2016 because of the warnings over an eruption and the closure of I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport in Denpasar for nearly three days at the end of the month.

“The increase was attributed to the accumulation of visits [from previous months]. There was a significant surge [in the number of inbound tourists] in July and August, and it compensated [for the decline in November],” the Tourism Ministry’s first secretary for overseas promotion I Gde Pitana told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

The number of inbound tourists last July and August rose by 30.85 percent and 36.11 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, Ngurah Rai International Airport saw a 9.63 percent decline in the number of incoming tourists in November from a year earlier.

Bali is estimated to account for 40 percent of total foreign tourist visits, followed by Jakarta and Batam, Riau Islands.

Given the figures as of November, the ministry maintained a realistic outlook in expecting 14 million foreign visits to the country by the end of 2017, falling 1 million short of its initial target of 15 million foreign visitors.

The ministry noted that the financial damage from Mount Agung’s eruption until the end of the year could reach US$1.2 billion dollars.

The Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association has said the hotel occupancy rate in Bali, popularly know as the island of gods, fell to only around 20 percent because of the eruption.

The government has promoted the message that Bali is safe and that eruptions at Mount Agung will only affect areas within a 10 kilometer radius of the crater.

The Tourism Ministry has also allocated Rp 100 billion (US$7 million) in the next three months for travel promotions and discounts to encourage tourists to visit Bali, in an effort to expedite recovery.

However, the government also acknowledged that one of the main impediments to recovering Bali’s tourism was the travel warning from China, the biggest contributor of inbound tourists in the past two years. The government has targeted to attract 3.2 million tourists from China this year.

Pitana said the ministry would send its delegation to China this month to explain the situation in Bali to the Chinese government, as well as inform it about the establishment of a standard operating procedure aimed at mitigating another potential airport closure in Bali.

“We will bring the hot deals [promotion] to various markets, especially leading to the Chinese New Year [in February],” he said.

Commenting on the matter, Association of Air Ticketing Companies in Indonesia vice president Rudiana attributed the shrinking number of foreign tourist visits to Bali to the travel alert maintained by a few countries, including China.

“Bali has suffered [from the eruption]. But I am optimistic for 2018 as we have many events, including the 2018 Asian Games,” he said.