Tourism in Indonesia: Foreign Visitor Number Rises 8.7% in Jan-Oct 2014

Cumulatively, foreign tourist arrivals reached 7.6 million in the January-October 2014 period, up 8.7 percent from the number of foreign visitors in the same period last year. As usual, most visitors entered Indonesia through the airport on the island of Bali, Indonesia’s foremost tourist destination. During the first ten months of 2014 a total of 3.1 million foreigners entered Indonesia in Bali (up 16.8 percent from the same period in 2013).

In terms of nationality, most foreign tourists that visited Indonesia in the January-October 2014 period originated from Singapore (15.3 percent of total number of visitors in the indicated period), followed by Malaysia (13.8 percent), Australia (12.4 percent), and China (11.8 percent).

Main Points of Entry Foreign Tourists:

Location	October 2013	October 2014	Jan - Oct 2013	Jan - Oct 2014
Ngurah Rai Airport (Bali)	266,453	339,200	2,651,938	3,096,766
Soekarno-Hatta Airport (Jakarta)	191,460	177,274	1,851,986	1,875,631
Batam	103,511	126,169	1,058,798	1,158,698

^{Source: Statistics Indonesia (BPS)}

The Indonesian government targets to welcome a total of 9.5 million foreign tourists in 2014. In the long term, this figure should more than double in the next decade as Indonesia targets to attract a similar number of foreign tourists as neighbouring countries Singapore and Malaysia. Recently, Indonesian President Joko Widodo announced that visa requirements for foreign visitors from Australia, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia are to be scrapped from January 2015 in an effort to boost foreign tourist numbers. Although this move would imply that Indonesia misses out on roughly USD $11.3 million per year (as currently USD $35 is charged for a ‘visa on arrival’), it is expected to result in an additional 450,000 foreign tourists per year and considering that each tourist spends an average USD $1,200 during his/her holiday in Indonesia, the country will thus gain around USD $540 million in additional foreign exchange per year.

Foreign Tourist Arrivals in Indonesia - 2013-2014:

Month	Tourist Arrivals          2013	Tourist Arrivals          2014
January	614,328	753,079
February	678,415	702,666
March	725,316	765,607
April	646,117	726,332
May	700,708	752,363
June	789,594	851,475
July	717,784	777,210
August	771,009	826,821
September	770,878	791,296
October	719,900	808,767
November	807,422
December	766,966
Total	8,802,129	7,755,616

^{Source: Statistics Indonesia (BPS)}

Foreign Tourist Arrivals in Indonesia - 2007-2014:

	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014¹
Foreign Tourists (in millions)	5.51	6.23	6.32	7.00	7.65	8.04	8.80	9.50

^{¹ indicates government target
Source: Statistics Indonesia (BPS)}

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