Tourist industry hammered by bombings in 2005
Jakarta Post 1 feb
JAKARTA (AFP): Foreign tourist arrivals to Indonesia plunged 10.28 percent to 4.07 million in 2005 as the country endured bomb attacks by Islamic extremists, official data showed Wednesday.
Foreign tourist spending also plummeted, falling 8.33 percent to US$4.4 billion in 2005, the Central Bureau of Statistics said in a statement, blaming the declining figures on a triple suicide bombing on Bali in October 2005.
The attack on Indonesia’s main tourism draw killed 20 bystanders and the three bombers.
Arrivals showed signs of recovery in December, the bureau said, jumping 19.56 percent to 312,177 compared with a month earlier, although December is usually the peak holiday season, it said.
Bali reported 81,093 arrivals in December, up from 67,687 in November.
The resort island saw 1.45 million tourist arrivals in 2005, down 4.67 percent from 2004. The latest bombing occurred as tourism, the main engine of Bali’s economy, had just sputtered back to life after nightclub blasts in October 2002 that killed 202 people, mostly foreign visitors. (**)