Jakarta - Indonesia is confident its number of foreign
tourists would increase up to 25 per cent next year despite previous
downward expectations because of the global financial crisis, a media
report said Friday.
Sapta Nirwandar, the Culture and Tourism Ministry's director
general, said Indonesia's tourism industry would continue to grow
because of higher spending on promotion combined with large numbers
of regular visitors who came to the country to enjoy surfing, scuba
diving, natural attractions and cultural pursuits.
Nirwandar said his ministry forecast 8 million foreigners would
visit the country in 2009, up 1 million from an initial target. Such
numbers would compare with a target of 6.4 million visitors this year.
'We are going to promote more health and beauty tourism, also
marine tourism and smaller islands,' The Jakarta Post quoted
Nirwandar as saying.
Nirwandar said Indonesia expected a decline in tourist arrivals
from the United States and Europe because of the financial crisis but
an increase in visitors from South Korea, China and the Middle East
was likely to fill the gap.
However, this year, the global economic downturn caused the
country to revise downward its initial target of 7 million foreign
visitors
According to the National Statistics Agency, the number of foreign
tourist arrivals had reached 5.09 million by the end of October.
In 2007, 5.05 million foreign tourists visited Indonesia, bringing
5.3 billion dollars into the country.
Indonesia - a sprawling nation of more than 17,000 tropical
islands teeming with coral reefs, wildlife, volcanoes and inland
waterways - is a nature lover's paradise.
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