The Central Board of Statistics (BPS) said the number of foreign tourist arrivals in July 2009 reached 593.4 thousand people, an increase of 4.59 percent as compared with that in July 2008 which stood only at 567.4 thousand.

“The July 2009 figure is also higher than that a month earlier,” BPS chief Rusman Heriawan said here on Tuesday.

The BPS recorded that the number of foreign tourist arrivals in the January-July 2009 period stood at 3.56 million.

Heriawan said that the increase in the number of foreign tourists negated doubts that the number of foreign tourists would drop after the July 17 twin bombings of JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta.

“We hope that the number of foreign tourists who will arrive in the country the following months would further increase,” the BPS chief said.

He said that like in the previous years, July was a peak season for foreign tourists so that in July usually the number of arrivals was bigger than that in the previous months.

Heriawan said that foreign visitors entering the country through the 11 main gates in July reached 510.5 persons, or an increase of 8.22 percent compared with that in the previous month.

Source: Antara