REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, MEDAN -- Indonesia sells itself better by offering a short-visit free visa facility to foreign tourists from 90 countries, Tourism Minister Arief Yahya said.

"The short-visit free visa facility is an additional point to enhance Indonesia's selling pitch in the world market," the Tourism Minister said in Medan, North Sumatra, on Saturday.

The minister was speaking at an interactive dialog on tourism with tourism industry operators and North Sumatra Acting Governor Erry Nuradi.

The short-visit free visa facility will also help bring more foreign tourists to the country.

Minister Yahya said the confidence that the free visa facility would increase the number of foreign tourists was based on the result of the first phase of the granting of the free visa facility to 30 countries. The number of foreign tourists coming from these countries is on the rise.

Foreign tourists coming from the 30 recipient countries increased by 4.27 percent in the June-July 2015 period from that in the June - July 2014 period.

Till August, the number of foreign tourist arrivals in Indonesia stood at 6.3 million, exceeding the mid-year target at 6.15 million.

Thus, the government is optimistic that it will achieve or even exceed its target, set at 10 million foreign tourist arrivals this year.

Minister Yahya said the government has set a target of 12 million foreign tourist arrivals in 2016.

Earlier, he had said that his ministry was teaming up with private parties to achieve the target of 10 million tourist arrivals in 2015.

"One of the efforts we are making is teaming up with private parties to bring foreign tourists to the country," Yahya said.

The move is in line with the government's aim to make the tourism sector the main engine of economic growth amid the global economic slowdown, he said.

The minister said he supported the activities carried out by Herbalife International to hold Future Millionaire Team Retreat in Bali from 15 October to 18 October. The event brought together more than 2,000 participants from Asia and the Pacific.

The government has set the target of tourist arrivals for this year at 10 million.

By August 2015, the number of foreign tourists visiting Indonesia reached about 6.3 million, up by 2.71 percent from the same period of last year.

The other step taken by the government to increase the number of tourist arrivals is providing tourists from 90 countries a visa-free facility for a short-term visit.

"The tourism sector, which contributed Rp140 trillion, is the fifth biggest foreign exchange earner. We expect the tourism sector to contribute Rp240 trillion to the state revenues in 2019," he said.

The number of tourist arrivals has increased by 16 percent since August, compared to only 2.9 percent during the January-July 2015 period.

The most significant surge was observed in the number of tourists arriving from China, which reflected an increase of 24 percent in August, in comparison with the same period last year, I Gde Pitana, the deputy in charge of international tourism marketing development of the tourism ministry, stated recently.

The government is offering visa-free facility to the citizens of 47 countries from October 2015. Earlier, the policy was only applicable to 45 countries.

The new policy is intended to boost the number of foreign tourist arrivals, expected to reach 20 million by 2019.

As the number of tourists to Indonesia exceeded all expectations in 2014, the government has extended the target from 10 million to 12 million foreign tourists for 2015.

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