Indonesia falls short of target tourist numbers because of coronavirus
Indonesia welcomed a total of 16.1 million foreign tourists in 2019, falling short of the government’s target of attracting 20 million tourists, Statistics Indonesia (BPS) announced on Monday that the coronavirus outbreak could cloud the outlook this year.
“We still have work to attract more foreign tourists to come into Indonesia,” said BPS head Suhariyanto during a press conference in Jakarta. The agency recorded a contraction of 2.03 per cent of foreign arrivals in December last year, which saw 1.37 million foreign tourists. Suhariyanto said Malaysia sent the most tourists to Indonesia, followed by Singapore and China in 2019.
“However, the coronavirus outbreak in China will no doubt lower foreign arrivals from China to Indonesia this year,” said Suhariyanto. The Indonesian government declared on Sunday that it would ban all travel to and from China to prevent the spread of the deadly and highly contagious coronavirus..
