Indonesia is facing a decline in the number of foreign tourists in April from the previous month by 1,52 percent, as reported by Badan Pusat Statisik (BPS) or the Central Bureau of Statistics.
In a new report, BPS revealed that about 901,095 foreign visitors paid a visit to Indonesia this April, indicating a decrease from the previous month of March, when the country managed to attract as many as 915,019 visitors.
The majority of these tourists, according to Head of BPS Suryamin, hail from countries in Asia. To be more specific, Suryamin mentioned the top five countries were: Singapore (139,850), Malaysia (120,476), China (107,050), Australia (96,687) and Japan (45,866).
But despite facing this decline, Suryamin says that the number of visitors from the aforementioned countries has actually increased when compared to last year’s figures:
“The number of foreign tourists from those five countries as increased fairly compared to the exact period the year before,” he said as reported by CNN Indonesia.
Compared to 2015, the number of foreign tourists this year rose by 7.51 percent from January to April. BPS reported that the year before, the country had approximately 3.27 million visitors while this year it has succeeded in welcoming 3.52 visitors in total. Suryamin added that the rise was due to Indonesia’s visa-free regulation that grants free passage to visitors from over 150 countries.
“There is an impact from the visa-free policy. In April, Indonesia normally faces a decline, yet this time it is facing an increase,” Suryamin said.