A total of 7.65 million tourists visited Indonesia in 2011, an increase of 9.24% compared to 2010 when 7 million international arrivals were recorded, said Suryamin, official from the Central Bureau for Statistics. The figure is slightly short of the maximum target for last year which was 7.7 million tourists, that was, among others, caused by the economic crisis still ongoing in Europe and the United States. But total receipts from tourism spending, actually rose 13.16% to US$ 8.6 billion, up from US$ 7.6 million in 2010.

According to Suryamin, in 2011, the Ngurah Rai Airport in Bali recorded the highest number of arrivals at 2.78 million, becoming Indonesia’s main tourist entry port, followed by the Soekarno-Hatta Airport in Jakarta that received 1.93 million arrivals.

According to the Passenger Exit Survey from the Ministry for Tourism and the Creative Economy, average expenditure per person per day for 2011 was US$ 142.69, up 5.69% compared to the previous year at US$ 135.01.But average length of stay decreased 2.49% from 8.04 days to 7.84 days.

For 2012, Indonesia remains optimistic to reach 8 million visitor arrivals, despite the expected downturn in tourists from Europe, which is one of the country’s main source markets. Marketing efforts will be more strongly directed to the ASEAN countries, East Asia, Russia, Australia and the Middle East.

Source:antaranews.com