The Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy (Kemenparekraf) reports a cumulative increase in foreign tourist arrivals (wisman) from January to October 2023, reaching 9,942,004, marking a remarkable surge of 124.30% compared to the same period in 2022 (year on year/yoy). Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy/Head of the Tourism and Creative Economy Agency, Sandiaga Salahuddin Uno, revealed these statistics during "The Weekly Brief with Sandi Uno" at the Kemenparekraf office in Jakarta on Monday (4/12/2023). According to data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), foreign tourist visits in October 2023 alone reached 978.50 thousand. Sandiaga stated that this cumulative figure has surpassed 111.67% of the upper limit target for foreign tourist visits set by the government.
Breaking down the visitor origin, Malaysia led with 14.16%, followed by Australia at 13.18%, Singapore at 9.17%, China at 7.7%, and Timor Leste at 6.02% in October 2023. Air travel dominated the foreign tourist arrivals, with Ngurah Rai International Airport and Soekarno-Hatta International Airport serving as the primary gateways for air travel, welcoming the highest number of foreign tourists. "With the strengthening collaboration from various parties, I believe that my dream to surpass 11 million foreign tourists in 2023 can be achieved, God willing," expressed Minister Sandiaga. Regarding domestic tourist movements (wisnus) from January to October 2023, the figure reached 688.78 million, showing a notable increase of 11.99% compared to the same period in 2022. "Java Island still dominates domestic tourist movements at 75.57%," said Sandiaga. In an intriguing development, in October 2023, NTB (West Nusa Tenggara) emerged as the province contributing the highest percentage to domestic tourist movements, both as the origin and destination. The percentages stood at 301.64% for the origin and 379.34% for the destination compared to the same period in 2022 (YoY). Despite the current figure of 688.78 million movements, which falls short of the target of 1.2 billion to 1.4 billion movements, Minister Sandiaga is confident that, with ongoing adjustments to algorithms and formulations, the actual domestic tourist movements have exceeded 1 billion. "In the next one or two months, together with BPS, we will make adjustments for (wisnus) calculations so that movements to destinations within provinces and between districts can occur," Sandiaga affirmed.
