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Despite coming thousands of kilometers to visit Indonesia,
foreign visitors spend most of their money here on the rather mundane
activities of sleeping and eating, a survey has found.
Findings released by Visa Indonesia revealed that overseas visitors
coming to Indonesia spend most of their money on accommodation, with
852,000 transactions being recorded in hotels, with a value of US$198
million, or about 34 percent of the total tourist spend, while 433,000
transactions worth a total of $36 million, or 6 percent of the total
spend, took place in restaurants.
The survey also revealed how foreign tourists spend their money when
shopping in Indonesia.
The highest spend is on men's and women's clothing at $14 million,
followed by objets d'art at $13.6 million. Meanwhile, the highest
growth was recorded by woman's accessories and specialty stores with a
160 percent increase, and luggage and leather goods stores, where
spending increased by 102 percent, as compared to a year earlier.
In-store shopping transactions contributed to 16 percent of the total
spend, or about $90 million.
The Visa Indonesia Tourism Spend Report, which is being published for
the first time, contains data from the VisaNet database, which shows
what international cardholders used their Visa cards on when visiting
Indonesia.
The findings, which are based on 2005 figures, also show that total
Visa International inbound spending in Indonesia increased by 20
percent to Rp 5.6 trillion ($579 million), as compared to the previous
year, despite a 6 percent drop in foreign visitor arrivals.
Five million visitors came to Indonesia in 2005, as compared with 5.3
million in 2004.
Asia-Pacific cardholders were the biggest spenders in Indonesia,
accounting for Rp 2.9 trillion, or 51 percent of the total
international spend. Cardholders from the European Union were the
second biggest international spenders at Rp 1.6 trillion.
Meanwhile, Australians were the biggest spending tourists notching up
total transactions of Rp 910 billion, followed by American and Japanese
tourists in second and third place with spends of Rp 820 billion and Rp
715 billion respectively.
"These figures signal strong tourist-market interest and potential for
growth in Indonesia. We hope that merchants and the tourism authorities
in Indonesia can use them to accurately plan and grow their businesses,
and protect them from market fluctuations," Visa Indonesia country
manager Ellyana C. Fuad said.
The average size of transactions by international Visa cardholders in
Indonesia rose to Rp 1.3 million in 2005 from Rp 1.2 million in 2004.
Visa South and Southeast corporate relations director Paul Wilke said
that most of the spending was highly concentrated on key tourism and
business destinations.
Bali remained the biggest tourist market in Indonesia, receiving 47
percent, or $261 million, of the total Visa spend in Indonesia.
Jakarta, and Batam in the Riau Islands were the next biggest markets on
$186 million (33 percent) and $12 million (12 percent) respectively.
"Without a doubt, Indonesia has great potential in tourism. The best
way to support this is by addressing the misperceptions of Indonesia in
relation to bird flu, tsunamis, and terrorism," Wilke said, adding that
by addressing these misperceptions, the situation this year could
probably be kept on a par with 2005.
In the second quarter of this year, Visa International inbound spending
dropped by less than 1 percent to Rp 1.4 trillion, while in the first
quarter, it rose by one percent to Rp 1.3 trillion.
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