Malaysia Dominate Visits To Aceh

Banda Aceh, March 2 (ANTARA) - The number of Malaysian tourists still dominates the arrival of foreigners in Aceh province in January 2012 with 616 of the total of 1,035 people. "Most of the foreigners visiting Aceh early in 2012 was still Malaysians followed by those from the RRC," head of the Aceh Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) Syech Suhaimi said in Banda Aceh Thursday. He said the number of foreigners who visited Aceh early in 2012 reached 1,035, a 67.7 pct increase from that in last year`s January. Suhaimi said the increase also happened to the number of Malaysians visiting Aceh early in 2012 reaching 99 pct compared to early in 2011. "In other words, the number of Malaysians visiting Aceh has increased drastically compared to last year`s," he said. The number of foreign visitors to Aceh early in 2012 however dropped by 40.3 pct from the number of foreigners by the end of 2011, because so many foreign tourists came there by the end of December, because of the many events at that time," he said. Suhaimi said the number of visitors who came to the province in January 2012 came from ASEAN member countries 646, Europe 201, Asia 116, and America 36.