Foreign Tourist Arrivals Exceed Target

Denpasar (Antara Bali) - As many as 3.27 million foreign tourists visited Bali during the year 2013, which surpassed the 2.8 million target set by the local Tourism Office.

"Bali recorded an 11.16 percent increase in the number of tourist visitors as compared to the previous year's recorded figure of 2.94 million visitors," Head of the Central Statistics Board of Bali Panusunan Siregar stated in Denpasar on Monday.

Panusunan pointed out that most of the travelers arriving at the Ngurah Rai International Airport, took flights directly from their respective countries. Only 36,709 people arrived in Bali through the sea route.

According to Panusunan, Australia has majorly contributed to boosting tourism in Bali. Nearly 25.21 percent of the total tourists who chose Bali as their holiday destination came from Australia.

In 2013, nearly 826,386 Australian tourists visited Bali, which is a 3.31 percent increase over the previous year's recorded figure of 799,897 tourists.

China is the second country that contributed to the tourism in Bali. As many as 387,533 Chinese tourists visited Bali, which is an increase of 22.19 percent over the 317,165 tourists recorded in 2012.

Japan ranked third with nearly 208,115 tourists visiting Bali in 2013, an increase of 10.28 percent over the previous year's recorded number of 188,711 tourists.

The Southeast Asian countries, Malaysia and Singapore, also contributed to the tourism in Bali. As many as 199,223 Malaysian and 138,397 Singaporean tourists visited Bali during 2013.

Meanwhile, 134,452 tourists from South Korea, 127,443 tourists from Taiwan, 125,113 tourists from France, 122,406 tourists from Britain, and 108,863 tourists from United States visited Bali.

"As many as 903,668 tourists visited Bali from various countries," claimed Panusunan. (*/DWA)