RI eyes 15 countries for tourism

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Tue, 10/13/2009 4:52 PM

The Culture and Tourism Ministry has targeted 15 countries worldwide to promote tourism in Indonesia.

Of the 15 nations, three countries have never been designated as potential markets for tourists, the Philippines, India and Russia, the ministry's director general of marketing Sapta Nirwandar said Tuesday.

The other 12 nations are Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Australia, China, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

In 2008, Singapore was the country that sent the most foreign tourists to Indonesia with 1,197,267 tourists. Second was Malaysia with 1,009,722 tourists.

Most Singaporean tourists visited Batam, while most Malaysian visited Jakarta.

The third-highest number of foreign tourists came from Japan with 559,888 tourists, most of whom visited Bali.

"In 2010, we have set targets of 1.3 million tourists from Singapore and 1.25 million from Malaysia," Sapta said. (bbs)