JAKARTA, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Indonesia is targeting the Indian tourism market following surge of Indian tourist arrivals in Bali in recent years, Tourism Minister Arief Yahya said on Wednesday.
The Tourism Ministry recorded 485,314 Indian tourists to Bali last year, up 30 percent from 2016. The figure has placed India among top five countries with highest tourist arrival growth in Bali.
"We are aiming for this positive potentials. With favoring conditions, the arrival number would continue to grow this year," the minister said, referring to Indian tourists' double-digit growth.
"India has a big size tourism market. We should maximize efforts to tap this market so as to attract more of them to come here," the minister added.
The ministry recently dispatched a sales mission to the Indian city of Kolkata, with dozens of Indonesian tour package sellers meeting with their Indonesian counterparts at a business-to-business event.
Indonesian authorities have downgraded the volcano's alert level from the highest IV to III following the decreasing volcanic activities in recent months.
Bali is now deemed safe for tourism except for certain areas declared as danger zones, which only accounted for 2 percent of the Bali island.
Indonesia has allocated 100 billion rupiah (about 7.2 million U.S. dollars) to finance efforts to save Bali from tourism demise following the closure of airports due to volcanic eruptions in November last year.