Over six million tourists visit Indonesia

Some six million foreign tourists visited Indonesia since the issuance of presidential regulation number 21 of 2016 concerning visa-free facilities for foreign citizens from 169 countries, an official said.

While 4,095,264 tourists came from 15 countries which have reciprocal agreements with Indonesia, 2,881,945 tourists came from 144 countries without any such pact with Indonesia, chief of the public relations services of the directorate general of immigration, Heru Santoso, elaborated at a meeting with journalists here on Friday.

“Admittedly, the figure is still far from the government-set target of 20 million tourists per year, but I believe it will further increase in the future,” he stated.

He noted that no tourists visited from 10 countries in this list of 169 countries. These ten countries are Antigua and Barbuda, Burundi, Czech Republic, Gabon, Haiti, Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Lesotho, Puerto Rico and Saint Lucia.

“I think the promotion campaign still needs to be intensified,” he added.

The directorate general of immigration also handled 135 criminal cases (pro justitia) in the first half of 2016, he said, adding at least three foreign nationals were involved in the cases.

“They committed immigration related crimes. In 2015, five foreign nationals were involved in such cases,” he informed.

The office also recorded 4,715 cases of immigration administration violation in the January-June 2016 period. The cases involved 117 citizens from countries eligible for visa-free facilities, he disclosed.