The number of international tourists visiting Riau Islands in May had a 449 percent increase from the same period last year.

Riau Islands Central Statistics Agency (BPS) head Panusunan Siregar said that in the first semester of 2017, there were 977,210 international tourists coming to the province, a 0.17 percent decrease from the same period last year that had 1,689 international tourists.

However, the number in June 2017 reached 175,309 which is amounted to 5.7 percent increase from last month.

In June, there was an increase of 23,485 international tourists. This is probably due to the mid-year holiday, said Panusunan.

The economy of the other three countries continues to grow, especially the two countries that have the highest population numbers in the world. India for example, the amount of upper-class citizens have reached 200 million people and of course, they want to travel overseas. Its the same thing with China, Pitana said.

There was an increase of Indian tourists from May to June this year, the number reached 1,934 people, Panusunan added.

Tourism ministry's deputy minister for Overseas Promotion, I Gde Pitana said that Riau Islands is dominated by tourists from Singapore, Malaysia, China and India.

Singapore is close [to Riau Islands] and they can travel by sea. There were around 492,293 Singaporeans who traveled to Riau Islands, the number is equal to 50.39 percent of the overall visits in the past six months, said Pitana.

The ministry's deputy assistant for Asia-Pacific tourism promotion, Vinsensius Jemadu added that according to a research, these upper-class tourists travel to Asian countries that boost natural attractions and affordable shopping experience. Asian countries are at the top of their list and then followed by Europe.

Tourism minister Arief Yahya said that Riau Islands is one of the ministrys main focuses,because the place is in the top three list of the most-visited destination by international tourists with the percentage of 20 percent, coming after Bali with 40 percent and Jakarta with 30 percent.

Second, Riau Islands has been set as the gate for marine tourism in Indonesia due to its geographical location that is close to Singapore where most yachts and ships are coming from, said Arief.

The third point is Riau Islands is included in the cross-border program and the ministry is planning to hold plenty of international events in the province. (asw)

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Riau Islands sees increase in number of international tourists - Jakarta Post