Jakarta – The number of tourists visiting Indonesia fell in August, nearly a year after the Bali bomb blasts, while arrivals fell almost 20 percent in the first eight months of 2003, the statistics bureau said on Thursday.

"The number of foreign tourist arrivals in August was still lower compared with last year, by 12.6 percent," said Mila Hertinmalyana, head of tourism statistics at the bureau.

She said about 368,000 visitors arrived in the world's most populous Muslim country in August. The number of visitors to the main tourist island of Bali, where Muslim militants blew up two nightclubs on October 12 last year killing 202 people, was down 27.37 percent in August, compared with the same month a year ago, to 121,236.

Arrivals in the capital, Jakarta, where a bomb tore through the luxury JW Marriott Hotel on August 5 killing 12 people, were down 20.4 percent for the month to 84,572.

Indonesia has forecast about 4.5 million foreign tourist arrivals this year, from about five million last year. From January to August, arrivals were down 19.7 percent at 2.3 million. Arrivals in Bali were down 35.2 pct at 650,723 in the same period.