It looks like the government’s attempts to lure more travelers to Indonesia are proving successful, with over 5 million foreign tourists having visited our country this year so far.
According to the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), 5,291,538 foreign tourists visited Indonesia from January-June 2016, which is a substantial increase from the same period last year.
“Cumulatively from the months of January to June, compared to last year, [the number of] foreign tourist visitors is up 5.88%,” said Suryamin, head of BPS, as quoted by Kompas yesterday.
Most of those foreign visitors came from Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, China, South Korea, Japan and India.
While BPS did not say what caused the increase in foreign tourists this year, it probably has something to do with the fact that the government waived visa requirements for the citizens of 84 additional countries to Indonesia late last year. Our neighbors down under also finally got their visa exemption in March 2016.
