REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, LONDON -- The number of foreign tourists visiting Indonesia has continued to increase. In August, the number has reached 1,031,986 million or up 13.19 percent from 911,704 arrivals in the same month last year.

The number, however, fell slightly from 1,032,741 arrivals in July, this year. The data was announced by assistant to deputy for development of foreign marketing at the Tourism Ministry Nia Niscaya told Antara news agency here on Tuesday .

Data at the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) showed that in the first eight months of this year, arrivals of foreign tourists reached 7,356,310 or an increase of 8.39 percent year-on-year. The highest growth in arrivals in August was recorded for Saudi tourists rising 55.31 percent year-on-year. The second highest growth was recorded by visitors from Australia at 47.52 percent, followed by France 35.93 percent, Britain 30.91 percent and Germany 27.64 percent.

The highest growth in the first eight months of 2016 was recorded by visitors from Egypt rising 49.93 percent (yoy), followed by tourists from Bahrain up 46.26 percent, India 29.19 percent, France 23.78 percent and China 23.67 percent.

Tourism Minister Arief Yahya said the number of 7.4 million arrivals in the first eight months of this year was in line with the target. "We are on the track. In July and August the number of arrivals already exceeded one million and the trend is expected to continue until the end of this year," Arief said. Therefore, the target of 12 million arrivals for this year is expected to be achieved, he added.

Meanwhile, the minister said going digital has become a strategy to draw more foreign tourists to Indonesia, especially from China, which has become the world's largest tourism market. Indonesia has succeeded only in recording 1.2 million or one percent of outbound Chinese, Arief said, adding Thailand already succeeded in attracting 8 million arrivals.

Not to be left behind, the Indonesian Tourism Ministry has teamed up with Baidu, the largest Chinese searching engine company called as "Chinese Google" to create a program to promote tourism destinations in Indonesia. Baidu could create many programs to promote Indonesian tourist destinations from upstream to downstream, from branding, advertising to selling. It promised to increase the number of Chinese visitors to Indonesia up to 10 million arrivals in 2019, said Arief, who visited China recently.

The 10 million arrivals of Chinese tourist would means 50 percent of the government's target pf 20 million in number of foreign tourist arrivals in the country in 2019. The minister said going digital has become a must in winning a significant share in the global market especially in China, where most tourists rely on Internet for information or the Baidu searching engine before buying tickets.

Chinese tourists would find information about tourist objects in various countries from internet before deciding destinations and booking seat at airline, he said.

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