Indonesia expects 7 million foreign tourist arrivals in 2010

Jan 12, 2010, 7:36 GMT

Jakarta - Indonesia projects foreign exchange revenues from international visitors at 7 billion dollars in 2010, up from 6.5 billion dollars the previous year, a cabinet minister said Tuesday.

'We're targeting 7 million foreign visitors this year with an assumption that each person is spending 1,000 dollars,' Minister of Culture and Tourism Jero Wacik said.

The number of tourist arrivals reached 6.4 million in 2009, bringing foreign exchange revenues of 6.5 billion dollars, detik.com online news portal quoted Wacik as saying.

This year the government plans to expand its tourism promotion, targeting European countries as a potential market, in line with the improving economy in the euro zone.

Garuda Indonesia, the country's flag carrier, also plans to re-open a route to Europe this year, to facilitate access to foreign tourists from the region, Wacik said.

Garuda is to fly from Jakarta to Amsterdam starting in June, after the European Union lifted its ban against the airline. All Indonesian airlines had been blacklisted in 2007 following a series of crashes.

The government was forced to close its tourism offices in several countries following the 1997 Asian economic crisis, due to lack of funding.

The sprawling nation of more than 17,000 tropical islands, teeming with coral reefs, exotic wildlife, volcanoes and inland waterways, is a nature lover's paradise.

But a string of terrorist attacks, earthquakes, tsunamis, bird flu outbreaks and sectarian violence have damaged Indonesia's reputation as a safe tourism destination in recent years.