Foreign Tourist Visits to TWC Borobudur Begin to Grow

Visits by foreign tourists (Wisman) to Borobudur Temple, Magelang Regency, Central Java have begun to show signs of activity compared to early 2022. Marketing & Sales Vice President of PT TWC, Pujo Suwarno said that entering September, the average number of foreign tourist visits per day reached 200 people.

"Only this month has there been movement in foreign tourist visits. This year, we are targeting foreign tourist visits of 100 thousand," he said from Magelang, Central Java, Wednesday (21/09/2022).

Pujo continued, while domestic tourist visits on weekdays reach 2000-3000 per day. Meanwhile, on weekends domestic visits increase to 4000-6000 per day.

"Our target this year for domestic and foreign tourist visits is a total of 1,2 million. We hope this can be achieved and even exceed the target," he said.

Meanwhile, in order to attract tourist visits amid the rules related to the prohibition of climbing the Borobudur Temple structure. His party is carrying out various tourism developments by involving destinations in the Borobudur Temple area, such as tourist villages.

"We continue to innovate to travel to Borobudur without having to climb the temple body. However, you can still enjoy other alternative tourism options in the Borobudur Temple area, which are no less interesting," he said.

Meanwhile, in 2021, the target of tourist visits in Central Java experienced a decline of 5,7 percent for domestic and 97 percent for foreign tourists. The decline in the number of foreign tourist visits during the pandemic was due to the policy of closing access to enter the country.

"According to the data from the (provincial) Tourism Office in 2021, the number of domestic tourist visits decreased by 5,7 percent, while foreign tourists decreased by 97 percent in Central Java. This is a natural thing I think because we are also closing the movement of people entering the country. The target if there is no pandemic is 11,5 million (tourists) during 2021," said Dadang Soemantri, Head of the Infrastructure and Natural Resources Bureau of the Central Java Regional Secretariat.

The decline in the target of tourist visits, said Dadang, was due to the impact of the pandemic not only in Central Java, almost all of it. Initially the target was 11,5 million tourists entering, but due to the pandemic it decreased.

"There are many things we have to do besides repairing, renovating tourist objects, we also build how local wisdom that was lost in the past, we build this. Starting from friends from the Tourism Office in the districts/cities throughout Central Java, creativity has emerged," he said.