Indonesia's foreign tourist arrivals rise 16% y-o-y in August

[JAKARTA] Indonesia attracted 944,455 foreign tourists in August, up 16.14 per cent from a year earlier, the statistics bureau said on Monday.

The rate of growth slipped from 20.13 per cent in July.

The total number of visitors in August, including those passing through Indonesia's borders from neighbouring countries and foreign workers with permits for less than one year, was 1.03 million, up 13.19 per cent from a year ago.

Indonesia has been attracting growing numbers of Chinese visitors.

The government wants to expand tourism to help reduce the economy's reliance on exports of raw commodities.

It aims to attract 20 million visitors a year by 2019, more than double last year's 9.73 million.

REUTERS