Visits By Australian Tourists To Bali Decline

Denpasar (Antara Bali) -  The number of visits by Australians  and Malaysians to Bali declined  in the first seven months of this year in comparison with visits in the same period last year.

"The number of Australians spending their holidays in Bali is 0.88 percent smaller and those from Malaysia declined 5.44 percent," head of the Bali Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) Adi Nugroho said here on Friday.

There were 643,515 Australians holidaying in Bali in the January-July period this year , down slightly from 649,237 in the same period last year, Adi said.

Australia is second after China in number of foreign tourists visiting Bali , contributing 18.91 percent to the total number of 3.4 million foreign tourists to the resort island in the first seven months of the year.

Malaysia is the 8th largest country of origin of foreign tourists after  China, Australia, India, Britain, Japan, the United States  and South Korea, with visitors reaching 96,715 in the first seven months of the year.  
     
The decline in the number of visitors from Australia and Malaysia came when Bali recorded a high increase of 23.50 percent year-on-year in number of foreign visitors in the first seven months of the year.

Bali's target for number of visits of foreign tourist is set at 5.5 million this year, up from realization of 4.2 visits in 2016.

The number of visits by Chinese tourists to Bali reached 892,887  in the first seven months of this year or an increase of 57.63 percent  from 326,440 visits in the same period last year.

"The rise has placed China on top of other countries of origin of foreign tourists visiting Bali," Adi  said  earlier.

Adi said most of the Chinese came directly to Bali by air via the Ngurah Rai International Airport with only 152 coming by sea as passengers of tourist boats.

Chinese tourists accounted for 26.24 percent of the total number of 3.4 million tourist visits to Bali in the January-July period of 2017.

Adi Nugroho said the number of Chinese visiting Bali has increased after direct flights opened by Indonesian airlines especially the nation's flag carrier Garuda  Indonesia, which has served direct flight between Denpasar and a number cities in China. (WDY)