Ayomi Amindoni, thejakartapost.com 1 Dec 15;
The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) has reported that the country welcomed 825,800 tourists in October, a decrease of 4.99 percent from the previous month as haze shrouded several parts of the country.
BPS deputy head of distribution and statistics Sasmito Hadi Wibowo said that the haze crisis affecting Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Sumatra and Papua had impacted tourist arrivals from Malaysia and Singapore, two countries that contribute the largest number of tourists to Indonesia.
“Tourist numbers from Singapore and Malaysia declined in October, impacted by the haze crisis. So, the haze not only affected our people but also tourism,” said Sasmito in a press conference in Jakarta on Tuesday.
The number of tourist arrivals from Malaysia declined to 96,326 in October 2015 from 111,540 in the same month last year.
Despite the decline, BPS data said that Singaporeans continued to dominate foreign tourist arrivals in October this year, reaching 122,122, 14.79 percent, of total foreign tourist arrivals in the month.
Meanwhile, the number of tourist arrivals from Australia rose to 102,033 in October 2015 from 100,294 tourists in the same month last year. The number of Chinese tourists also increased, from 95,166 tourists in October 2014 to 101,586 in the same month this year.
Meanwhile, tourist arrivals from Japan decreased slightly to 43,588 in October 2015 from 44,517 in the same period of last year.
Cumulatively, in the period of January to October, the number of foreign tourist arrivals reached 8.02 million, up 3.38 percent from 7.76 million in the same period last year.
"Monthly foreign tourist arrivals this year are higher than in 2014. Despite the haze crisis, the number of foreign tourist arrivals this year is still higher than in 2014. We don’t expect the impacts of the haze crisis to affect foreign tourist arrivals in November," Sasmito said. (ebf)(+)
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