Malaysian tourists to Bali in 2008 reach over 113,000

Denpasar  (ANTARA News) - The number of Malaysian tourists visiting the Indonesian tourist resort island of Bali in the January - November 2008 period was recorded at 113,409, a statistics agency official said. 

"The number of tourists coming from the neighboring country increased by 20,546 or 22.26 percent if compared with that a year earlier which stood at 92,763," Head of the Central Board of Statistics for Bali office, Ida Komang Wisnu, said here on Friday. 

He said that Malaysian tourists were the sixth biggest visitors in the list of foreign tourists coming to Bali from 10 main countries. 

Japanese tourists were ranked first in the list with 338,003 visitors, followed by Australians (286,998), South Korea (124,098) and Taiwan (120,810). 

Malaysia which was ranked in the sixth place was followed by Germany (77,316), Britain (75,614), France (71,788), the United States (61,770) and a number of other countries with visitors totaling 436,977 tourists, he said. 

Ida Komang Wisnu added that the total number of foreign visitors arriving in Bali in the eleven month period last year was 1,823,044. It rose by 20.01 percent (301,980 persons) from the same period in 2007 which stood at 1,521,064. 

He said that almost all foreign visitors coming to Bali arrived through Ngurah Rai International Airport.