REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- Some 1.4 million foreign tourists have arrived in Indonesia in the January-February 2014 period, up 12.61 percent from the same period a year earlier which stood at 1.2 million.

"It seems to be a good trend. We hope it will be better in the following months so that our target of 9.3 million to 9.4 million foreign tourist arrivals would be achieved or even exceeded this year," Tourism and Creative Economy Minister Mari E Pangestu said here on Tuesday.

She said that the number of foreign tourist arrivals in the country in February stood at 702,666 while in January it was recorded at 753,079.

The increase of 12.61 percent is far higher than the increase in the same period last year which was 9.4 percent.

She said data showed the number of arrivals fluctuated from month to month. "As it can be seen in February's figure of 702,666, it drops if compared with that in January which was recorded at 753,079," she said.

However, if compared with February 2013 of 678,415, the February 2014 figure is 3.57 percent bigger so that as a whole the trend is increasing, the minister asserted.

Even if it is compared with the number of arrivals in Februaries in the previous years, the number of arrivals in February 2014 is far better and constituted a record.

She said that the tourism sector in February faced heavy constraints particularly because of the Mount Sinabung and Mount Kelud eruptions.

The eruptions caused a number of airports which were among the main gates of foreign tourists such as the Juanda airport (Surabaya), Adi Sucipto (Yogyakarta), Ahmad Yani airport (Semarang), Adi Sumarno (Solo) and Husein Sastranegara (Bandung) were closed for several days.

"We are still keeping our growth target unchanged at 5.8-6 percent. BI had lowered its growth target range to 5.5-5.9 percent, so the government's growth target is still within the range of BI's growth target," he said.

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