Jakarta. Indonesia's pandemic-battered tourism suffered from a 71.42 percent drop in foreign tourist arrivals from January to July 2021, according to the Central Statistics Agency, or BPS.

Indonesia only attracted 937,747 foreign tourists during January-July 2021.

"The accumulated foreign tourist arrivals nationwide declined by 71.42 percent from January to July 2021, compared to the 3.28 million [arrivals] recorded in the same period a year ago," Setianto, the deputy for services and distribution statistics at BPS, said on Wednesday.

On January-July 2021, Indonesia saw a 93.58 percent drop —the largest drop of all— in foreign tourists coming from the Oceania region, in comparison to the same period in 2020. The number of foreign tourist arrivals from the Asian region outside Asean suffered the smallest decrease with "only" a 53.18 percent decline.

BPS data showed that the East Timorese tourists dominated the foreign tourist arrivals stats in January-July 2021 with 483,920 visits (51.60 percent), followed by Malaysia with 292,650 visits (31.21 percent). 

About 4.01 percent or 37,630 foreign tourists came from China. 

BPS reported that 16,560 tourists from Papua New Guinea visited the country and thus accounting for 1.77 percent of the international tourists. Indonesia also 14,130 foreign visitors (1.51 percent) coming from its neighboring country Singapore, according to BPS.

In July 2021, Indonesia attracted 138,970 foreign visits — a 10.77 percent decline in comparison to the 155,740 visits last July. 

The number, however, slightly rose by 1.25 percent, if compared to the number of foreign tourist arrivals this June.

The room occupacy rate in star-rated hotels in July 2021 only reached 22.38 percent, down by 5.69 points in comparison to the same period last year.

If compared to June 2021, July's room occupancy rate also dropped by 16.17 points, BPS reported.