JAKARTA ~

Tourism Minister Arief Yahya said Indonesia is seeking to promote its tourism objects in Middle East to draw more visitors from that region.

Arief said the number of Mideast visitors to the country has increased significantly lately.

The government is serious in seeking to draw more tourists from Middle East, he said.

Last year the number of visitors from Middle East grew 26 percent to 170,000, he said.

He said generally visitors from Middle East came in groups of family and stay relatively longer.

“They also are bigger spenders, spending from US$1,4000 – US$1,700 per visit per person as against around US$,140 per visit each by visitors from other regions. Arief Yahya said in a bid to draw more visitors from Middle East, the country takes active part in international tourism markets such as in Arabian Travel Market (ATM) in Dubai earlier this month.

He said in the ATM, he met with a number of prospective investors such as Tasweek, Emaar Properties, Trump Hotel Collection, Damac Properties, and Paramount Hotel & Resor.

The minister offered investment opportunity in the tourism sector in a number of Tourism Special Economic Zone (KEK) including Tanjung Lesung Tourism Resort (Banten), Mandalika Tourism Resort (NTB), and Bintan (Riau).

“Mid-east tourists have strong interest in visiting Indonesia as indicated by the growing number of airline serving direct flights between that region and Indonesia,” Arief said.

He cited Emirates Airlines plans to open direct flight between Dubai and Bali everyday this month.

Meanwhile, more than 749.9 thousand tourists visited Indonesia in April 2015, up 3.24 percent from 726.3 thousand in the same month last year, according to the Central Statistics Agency (BPS).

Among the six major entry points, Ngurah Rai Airport in Bali recorded the highest number of arrivals with 309.8 thousand tourists. “The number of arrivals through Ngurah Rai Airport rose 11.5 percent to 309.8 thousand from 277.9 thousand in April 2014 and increased 5.13 percent from 294.7 thousand in the previous month,” BPS Chairman Suryamin said on Monday.

Cumulatively, the number of tourist arrivals in Indonesia from January to April 2015 reached 3.05 million, up 3.4 percent from 2.95 million in the same period last year, Suryamin noted.

The BPS chief added that 15.84 percent of the 749.9 thousand tourist arrivals in April 2015 came from Singapore, 14.59 percent from Malaysia, 11.52 percent from China, 11.32 percent from Australia, and 4.12 percent from Japan.

“The number of Japanese tourists fell from 34,683 in April 2014 to 30,869 in April 2015,” he explained.