2013's Growing Number of Tourists in Indonesia Meets Government Target

On Monday (03/02), Statistics Indonesia released various data regarding Indonesia's tourism sector. According to the institution, the number of foreign tourist in Indonesia increased 9.42 percent to 8.80 million people in the full year of 2013. Foreign exchange earnings from the tourism sector grew 11.0 percent to USD $10.1 billion from USD $9.1 billion in 2012. This means that - on average - each foreign tourist spent USD $1,142 per visit in 2013 despite the average length of stay slightly declining from 7.7 days to 7.5 days.

The growth from 8.04 million to 8.8 million foreign tourists, which exceeded the government's target, was attributed to successful tourism promotional activities abroad as well as several big international events that were held over the past year (for example the APEC conference in Bali).

The most important points of entry in 2013 were still Bali, Jakarta and Batam. More than 6.81 million foreign tourists entered Indonesia in one of these three locations.

Of the average amount of USD $1,142 that a foreign tourist spends during his holiday in Indonesia, 48.9 percent is allocated to accomodation expenses, 17.7 percent to food and drinks, and 7.9 percent to souvenirs.

Meanwhile, domestic tourism is also growing. In 2013, 245 million domestic tourist trips were organized, an increase of 1.21 percent from the previous year. On average, a domestic tourist spends IDR 711,000 (USD $58.3) per trip.

Between 2007 and 2013, foreign tourists numbers are showing an increasing trend (see table below). This is partly due to a reduction in terrorist incidents aimed at western targets. A series of terrorist attacks between 2002 and 2005 caused the growth in foreign tourists to stagnate, while the attack on the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton in 2009 led to limited foreign tourism growth in 2009. In the last four years, however, there have been no terrorist incidents directed at foreign targets.

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