DENPASAR ~

Bali tourism remains to promote the island intensively in Australia to attract more tourists visit from the country in the middle of the issue of death penalty in drug case.

“We are still doing promotion in Australia, through the sales mission,” said Chairman of the Indonesian Tourism Industry Association (GIPI) Ida Bagus Ngurah Wijaya in Denpasar on Wednesday.

According to him, the mission will be held in three major cities, including Melbourne and Sydney in April 2015. Ngurah Wijaya stated that despite the tension between the two countries related to the execution of two convicts Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan is increasing, tourism promotion activities remain to be implemented.

He explained that the problem of the pros and cons of executions is a political matter that should be separated from the activities of tourism. Related to the boycott issue, he said that it gives no impact on tourism on the island.

Data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) of Bali shows during 2014, the number of tourists from Australia was in the first position, reaching 991,923 people or jumped 20 percent over the previous year. The amount accounted for 26.3 percent of the total number of tourist arrivals to Bali that reached nearly 3.8 million during 2014.