Jakarta – Approximately six million foreign tourists were recorded visiting Indonesia after the introduction of visa free policies for 169 countries, the Directorate General of Immigration said.
Heru Santoso, the directorate general's spokesperson, revealed 4,095,264 tourists from 15 reciprocal countries, as well as 2,881,945 tourists from 144 non-reciprocal countries visited Indonesia since the policy change in Oct. 2015.
"It's still far from the government target of 20 million tourists this year, but I'm sure the numbers will increase," Heru said in Jakarta.
The directorate general highlighted that of the 169 countries, 10 countries have recorded an arrival rate of zero percent – Antigua and Barbuda, Burundi, Czech Republic, Gabon, Haiti, Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Lesotho, Puerto Rico and Saint Lucia. "We definitely need to improve on promoting [to these countries]," he added.
The archipelago has set an ambitious target of 12 million tourist from across the globe this year, after being visited by 10 million last year.