The number of  tourists from France and some other countries  visiting Bali had been constantly increasing.

“The 59,595 French people visiting Bali in the January-July 2009 period constituted an 50.68 percent increase compared to those coming to the island paradise in the same period last year,”  head of the Bali Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) Ida Komang Wisnu said here Tuesday.

He said in last year’s seven months the number of French tourists to Bali reached only 39,561.

The significant increase  made France the seventh of the ten countries with the highest number of tourists to Bali.

Ida Komang Wisnu added that Bali therefore also contributed  4.57 percent of the total number of 1,304,369 foreign tourists who had visited Bali, which also constituted a 12.26 percent increase compared to the 1,304,359 who came to Bali in the same period last year.

The six countries with the biggest contribution of the increasing number of tourists to Bali were, besides France,  Australia 36.98 percent, China 61.07 percent,  Malaysia 21.74 percent, the UK  9.10 percent, and Germany 0.92 percent.

The four countries with declining number of tourists were Japan 10.77 percent, South Korea 6.06 percent, Taiwan 18.45 percent, and Germany 0.63 percent.

Source : Antara.