Indonesia May tourist arrivals up 10.9 pct from April

The number of foreign tourists visiting Indonesia in May rose 10.85 percent from April to 509,000 and was up 13.9 percent from a year ago, according to data from the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) released on Tuesday.

In the first five months of this year, 2.37 million foreign tourists visited the country compared to 2.1 million a year earlier, BPS was quoted by Thomson Fnancial as saying.

Resort island Bali remained the biggest entry point, with 789,005 tourists arriving via its Ngurah Rai airport during the first five months, up 25 percent from a year ago.

Last year, 5.51 million foreign tourists visited Indonesia, up from 4.87 million in 2006.

Tourist spending totaled $5.3 billion in 2007, an increase of 20.5 percent from $4.4 billion a year before.

source: Antara | July 208