JAPANESE TOURIST ARRIVALS IN BALI FALL 7.18 PERCENT

Denpasar, Bali, July 3 (ANTARA) - The number of Japanese tourist arrivals in Bali went down by 10,215 or 7.16 percent from 142,337 in the first five months of 2008 to 132,122 during the same period in 2009.

"Despite the quite drastic fall, Japanese tourists still rank second on the list of the top 10 countries contributing to Bali's tourist dollar earnings," Ida Komang Wisnu, head of the Bali provincial Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) said here on Friday.

Japanese accounted for about 15.19 percent of the total number of foreign tourists visiting Bali (870,029) during the January-May period in 2009, he said.

"They mostly arrived in Bali through Ngurah Rai International Airport, and only eight of them used cruisers," he said.

In 2008, some 359,827 Japanese tourists visited Bali, constituting about 18.06 percent of the total number of foreign tourist arrivals on the island, which was 1,992,299.

Last year, the number of Japanese people visiting Bali rose by 7,789 people or 2.21 percent from the previous year of 352,038 people.

Japan and Australia contributed the largest number of tourist arrivals on Bali Island.

In May 2009, some 22,901 Japanese people visited Bali, down 5.80 percent from 23,311 people in May 2008, he said.

The Japanese tourist arrivals constituted 12 percent of the total number of tourist arrivals of 190,803 in Indonesia's most famous tourist resort.

The government has projected state revenue from foreign tourists visiting Indonesia in 2009 at only seven percent, while last year the revenue reached 7.5 percent.

"This year the number of foreign tourists visiting Indonesia will increase, but dropped in terms of the state's revenue compared to last year's 7.5 pct," Tourism Minister Jero Wacik said in Yogyakarta recently.

He said the drop in foreign exchange revenue was caused by a decline in the shopping spree by the foreign tourists.

He said the government has projected this year's foreign tourists visiting Indonesia at 6.5 million, up by 3 pct compared to last year's.