Indonesia’s May tourist arrivals up 9% month-on-month

People enjoy the beach during sunset in Jimbaran, Bali, Indonesia, September 2, 2022. REUTERS/Willy Kurniawan/File photo

JAKARTA  – Foreign arrivals to Indonesia in May were up 9.21 percent compared to the previous month thanks to international events, data from the statistics bureau showed on Monday.

The Southeast Asian country recorded 945,590 tourist arrivals in May versus 865,810 in April, data showed.

In May last year, foreign arrivals stood at 354,920 as the government had just started to ease coronavirus restrictions.

“[The increase] came as there were some events that happened in May, such as the Asean summit,” Pudji Ismartini, deputy head of Statistics Indonesia, said in a press conference.

She was referring to the meeting of Southeast Asian leaders that was held in the tourism destination, Labuan Bajo in East Nusa Tenggara province.

Malaysia, Australia and Singapore were still the top three source markets, as in the previous two months.

Indonesia received 4.12 million visitors in the first five months of 2023, equal to 70 percent of the total arrivals in 2022.

Earlier this year, the country’s tourism ministry revised up its target of foreign arrivals in 2023 to 8.5 million visitors from 7.4 million following positive results in the first quarter.

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