Chinese dominate foreign visitors in Indonesia's Bali in January

JAKARTA — Chinese visitors dominated foreign ones who visited Indonesia's resort island of Bali in January this year with 147,928 travellers, a Statistics Bureau Agency (BPS) official said on Wednesday.

The official added that influx of Chinese visitors in Bali was significantly high as it grew 92.32 percent if compared to 76,919 people recorded in the same period last year.

"Most of them came with direct flights to Bali's Ngurah Rai airport from several cities in China, while smaller number of theme came with cruise ships," Head of Bali provincial BPS office Adi Nugroho said in Bali capital of Denpasar.

He added that with such an enormous arrival figure, Chinese visitors contributed 32.10 percent from a total of 460,824 foreign visitors who visited the resort island in Bali during the first month this year.

According to him, the number of Chinese visitors in January has toppled down Australia's domination in foreigners visiting Bali for years. Australian visitors in Bali stood at 91,515, the second largest after Chinese visitors.

Bali Tourism expert Tjokorda Gde Agung attributed the surge in Chinese visitors to the increasing direct flights from Chinese cities to Bali and the government's initiation to grant free tourism visa for 169 countries, including from China.

Indonesia has regarded China as its main market in tourism sector as the country has increasing number of outbound travelers with 120 million ones recorded in 2015, or 12 percent higher than in 2014.

Indonesia has set target to receive 15 million foreign visitors this year, higher than 12 million ones last year.