Foreign Tourist Visits Plunge 74.33% in First Half of 2021

The COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic has impacted all sectors, including tourism. The implementation of community activity restrictions and travel bans to Indonesia have discouraged international tourists from visiting the country's destinations.

Based on data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), only 803,378 international tourists visited Indonesia during the first half of 2021. This number is a 74.33% decrease compared to the same period last year, which saw 3.13 million visits.

The number of international tourist visits in the first half of 2021 only reached 19.8% of the total for the whole of last year. Furthermore, it represents only 4.98% of the highest level ever achieved in 2019, which was 16.1 million visits.

Based on this data, international tourist visits this year are expected to reach their lowest level in several decades. The Emergency Community Activity Restriction (PPKM) policy, implemented since July 3rd and extended until August 9th, 2021, will impact the domestic tourism sector in the second half of this year.

Meanwhile, the hotel occupancy rate (HOR) for star-rated hotels was recorded at 38.5% in June 2021. This figure is higher than June 2020, which was only 19.7%, but lower than June 2019, which reached 52.27%.