VISITOR arrivals to Indonesia in January 2013 showed a 5.9 per cent year-on-year decline to 614,328.
The fall was led by China with negative 37.2 per cent growth, followed by Taiwan with 28.8 per cent and Singapore with 15.5 per cent.
Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy spokesman, I Gusti Ngurah Putra, blamed the Lunar New Year, which fell in January last year and in February this year, for hurting January arrivals to Indonesia.
While arrivals from Australia also crept into negative territory with a 1.9 per cent decrease, Japan and South Korea showed healthy growth of 14.7 per cent and 6.6 per cent respectively, while Malaysian footfalls rose by 8.2 per cent. Emerging markets India and the Middle East also booked an increase of 3.6 and 7.9 per cent.
Ngurah Putra remarked that the positive growth in arrivals had balanced out the fall in visitors from China, Singapore and Taiwan.
On the longhaul front, arrivals from the Netherlands decreased by 11.8 per cent while arrivals from the rest of Europe were up by between 0.3 and 6.6 per cent.
Ngurah Putra expects Indonesia’s role as the official partner country of the recently-concluded ITB Berlin, to boost inbound figures not only from Europe but also other markets.
The country is gunning for nine million arrivals this year, targeting South-east Asia, especially Singapore and Malaysia, and China as major source markets.
