Jakarta – Foreign visitors to Indonesia in January were down 18 per cent from the previous month, data from the statistics bureau showed on Wednesday, a fall attributed to a seasonal travel factor.
The decline to 735,950 foreign arrivals from 895,120 in December was because of Christmas and New Year holidays, when numbers typically peak, said Pudji Ismartini, deputy head of Statistics Indonesia.
However, in annual terms the January figure was a huge increase from the 121,980 recorded in 2022, when some pandemic restrictions were still in place.
Indonesia recorded 5.47 million foreign visitors for the whole of 2022, above the government's target of 3.6 million. That was more than triple the number recorded in 2021, when strict entry curbs on foreigners applied.
The Southeast Asian country has set a target of more than 7 million visitors this year.