Dian Kusumo
IDXChannel - Bali's Indonesian Tourism Industry Association (GIPI) recorded the region's foreign tourist arrivals at 5.37 million, as of December 15, 2023, or slowly recovering to 88 percent, from 6.3 million in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic.
"The number of foreign tourists visiting Bali in 2023 has exceeded the target of 4.5 million people," Chairman of GIPI Bali, Ida Bagus Agung Parta Adnyana, stated on the sidelines of the 2023 Tourism Evaluation Meeting in Denpasar, Friday.
According to Adnyana, this achievement was in line with projections from the United Nations World Tourism Agency (UNWTO) which stated that recovery of the global tourism sector was at around 80-90 percent.
Adnyana drew attention to a two-fold increase in foreign tourist arrivals in Bali as compared to 2.3 million people recorded in 2022 after international flights opened in stages, starting March 7, 2022.
The increase in the number of foreign tourists in Bali will also encourage economic growth in the region in 2023, which reached above five percent by the third quarter of 2023, he remarked.
