Number Of US Tourists To Bali Up 25.58 Percent

Denpasar (Antara Bali) - As many as 49,989 US tourists visited Bali in the January-July 2011 period or  up 25.58 percent  compared to the number in the same period last year which was recorded at only 39,806, an official said.

"Most of them visited Bali through Ngurah Rai airport with direct flights from their country. Only 1,835 people came to the Paradise Island by sea," head of the  Bali  office of the Central Bureau of  Statistics (BPS) Ir Gede Suarsa said here Monday.

Suarsa said in 2010, 59,815 tourists from the US visited Bali or an increase from only 35,625 in the previous year.

The US is among ten countries which supply the biggest numbers of tourists to Bali after Australia, China, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, France and Britain.

He said the US contributed 3.15 percent of the total number of foreign tourists to the Island of Gods which was recorded at 1.58 million for seven months in 2011, an increase of 10.60 percent compared to the same period in the previous year which amounted to only 1.43 million people.

In 2011, Bali set a target of inviting 2.6 million to 2.8 million foreign tourists or bigger than the number in 2010 which totaled 2.57 million people.

Suarsa pointed out that of the ten countries contributing the biggest number of tourists, the number of visitors from nine countries increased significantly.

He added the nine countries are the US and Australia whose number of tourists increased by 26.58 percent, China (11.63 percent), Malaysia (19.27 percent), Taiwan (1.41 percent), South KOrea (0.54 percent), Singapore (30.97 percent), France (7.18 percent) and Britain (8.49 percent).

The only country whose number of tourists coming to Bali dropped is Japan. As many as 141,743 Japanese tourists visited Bali in the first seven months in 2010 and the number declined to 104,788 people in the same period in 2011, Suarsa said.(*)