Denpasar, Bali. A total of 341,664 Australian tourists visited the resort island of Bali in the first seven months of 2010, up 51.07 percent from a year earlier.

The figure put Australia in the first place among top ten source countries of foreign tourists over the period, head of the Bali provincial statistics office Ida Komang Wisnu said here on Wednesday.

The Australian tourists were made up of 23.81 percent of the overall tourist arrivals in the resort island in the year to July 2010 reaching 1,435,016, he said.

The number of tourist arrivals in the January-July 2010 period represented a 9.90 percent increase compared to the same period last year when the figure was recorded at 1,305,793, he said.

“Most of the Australian tourists came to Bali by direct flights from their country. Only 8,036 of them came to the resort island by cruise liners,” he said.

He said the relatively stable security condition in Bali was one of the factors attracting more and more Australians to visit Bali.

Many Australian tourists considered Bali “their second homes”, he said.

Australia is one of the top ten source countries of foreign tourists for Bali besides China, Japan, Malaysia and Singapore.

Source : Antara News -  3 September 2010