Jakarta: Statistics Indonesia (BPS) reported that foreign tourist arrivals in Indonesia from January to May 2024 reached 5.2 million, the highest recorded figure during the period since the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020.
“The total number of foreign tourist arrivals in the first five months of 2024 is the highest in the last four years, since 2020,” Acting Chief Secretary of BPS Imam Machdi noted in a press conference in Jakarta on Monday.
The number of foreign tourist arrivals in the country during the January-May 2020 period only reached 2.9 million. The figure declined to only 604 thousand in the same period in 2021.
The number of foreign tourist arrivals then rose to 997 thousand in 2022 and thereafter reached 4.2 million arrivals in the January-May 2023 period.
In May 2024 alone, the number of foreign tourist arrivals in Indonesia stood at 1,145,499, an increase of 7.36 percent month over month and a climb of 20.11 percent year over year.
Tourists from the neighboring country Malaysia dominated the number of travelers visiting Indonesia, with a share of 17 percent of the total foreign tourists recorded in May 2024, followed by tourists from Australia, at 12 percent; Singapore, at 9.7 percent; and China, at 8.6 percent.
“Arrivals of tourists from Malaysia increased by 17.24 percent on a monthly basis, while on an annual basis, they increased by 18.26 percent,” Machdi remarked.
As many as 544 thousand tourists entered Indonesia through I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport, Bali, dominated by tourists from Australia.
The BPS reported that in May 2024, the average length of stay of foreign tourists, including foreign travelers crossing borders, in Indonesia stood at 7.51 nights.
