Statistics Indonesia (BPS) announced Wednesday that Indonesia had recorded 163,646 foreign tourist arrivals in May, a 3.1 percent increase from 158,718 in April. May's arrivals were dominated by visitors from Timor Leste and Malaysia. 

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Despite the slight monthly increase, May’s figures were still down 86.9 percent from the 1.24 million visitors welcomed in the same period last year. From January to May, Indonesia recorded just 2.9 million foreign tourist visits, a 53.56 percent drop from the same period last year.

“Decreasing [visits] were recorded at almost all points of entry,” BPS head Suhariyanto told a virtual press briefing. “Annual arrival figures at major airports, such as Ngurah Rai [in Denpasar, Bali], Soekarno-Hatta [in Tangerang, Banten] and Juanda [in Surabaya, East Java] international airports, have dropped almost 100 percent.” 

Increases in arrivals were recorded at only several points of entry, such as Batam, Riau Island, which has become a major point of entry for visitors from Malaysia and Singapore.

“If we look at the overall figure, we can see that tourism is still being severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The government has prepared a strategy to revive tourism, but the recovery will take time because we don’t know when the COVID-19 crisis will end,” Suhariyanto said. 

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