2.3 million tourists visited Bali in the last five months (January – May), up 23.66 percent compared to the same period in 2016, when 1.86 million people visited the island.
“As many as 2.28 million people came by airplane through Ngurah Rai Airport and only 23,424 came through seaports onboard cruise ships,” said Adi Nugroho, Head of Bali’s Central Statistics Agency (BPS), as quoted by Republika.
The government is targeting 5.5 million tourists to visit Bali in 2017, an increase from the 4.2 million people who visited last year. In May of this year alone, Adi added, there were 489,376 tourists – 486,207 arrived through Ngurah Rai Airport and 3,169 via seaports. That number is up 24.03 percent compared to the same month in 2016, meanwhile there was also a surge of 2.49 percent during April.
From the 10 countries that visited Bali the most, eight of them saw a sharp increase and two saw a decline compared to the same period in 2016. The top spot is dominated by Chinese tourists, up 59.61 percent from 386,096 people in January – May 2016 to 616,233 people in the same period in 2017.
They are followed by Australians who are up 1.41 percent from 430,324 people to 436,374. There is also a 32.37 percent increase in the number of tourists from India, from 74,151 to 98,153 people.
Meanwhile, British tourist numbers are up 12.13 percent, the U.S. is up 16.15 percent, South Koreans up 18.87, Taiwanese visitors increased by 15.28, and German visitor numbers are up 13,33.
Conversely, Japanese tourists are down 0.24 percent from 91,297 people in January – May 2016 to 91,076 this year, while Malaysians are down 10.88 percent from 75,735 to 67,492 people.
Photo: www.aktual.com.
