Number Of Foreign Tourists Visiting N Sumatra Touches

Medan, N Sumatra, Feb 3 (Antara) - The number of foreign tourists visiting North Sumatra in 2013 rose by 7.19 percent from previous year to 259,299. "The increase in the number of foreign tourists was encouraged by North Sumatra trying to restore the glory of its tourism sector," the Head of the Central Statistics Board of North Sumatra, Wien Kusdiatmono, said in Medan on Monday. Wien explained that the rise in the number of visiting foreign tourists in 2013 was triggered by more tourists visiting from Malaysia, Singapore and China. The number of Malaysian tourist rose by 3.36 percent to 148,465. Meanwhile, Singaporean tourists jumped 34.59 percent to 18,276 and the number of Chinese visitors was up 31.81 percent to 8,081. "Only the number of tourists from the Netherlands and Australia has declined," Wied said. The Chairman of the Indonesian Travel Association of North Sumatra, Solahuddin Nasution, stated that the rise in the number of foreign tourists was still not as expected by the tourism industry. "It still needs hard work to raise the number of foreign tourists visiting North Sumatra because during the 1990`s decade, the number of foreign tourists had reached 500 thousand, he said. To attract more tourists, it was important to improve tourism destinations, followed by an improvement in infrastructure and adding tourist places, Solahuddin pointed out. "Tourism should be seriously improved in North Sumatra because even if the competition gets tougher in other regions, it will continue to attract more tourists," Solahuddin noted.