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THE Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park Center (BB-TNBTS) said the number of tourist visits to the national park area during 2019 was recorded to be lower compared to 2018.
According to the Head of Subdivision Data for Reporting and Public Relations of BB-TNBTS Sarif Hidayat said that in 2019, the number of tourist visits to the Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park was recorded at 690,831 tourists while in 2018, the total number of visits reached 853,016 people.
“One of the factors influencing the decline in the number of tourists is the closure of Mount Semeru climb. Closing the climb of Mount Semeru is one of the factors decreasing the number of tourist visits to the Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park throughout 2019,” Sarif said.
The closure, said Sarif, was carried out from 3 January to 11 May 2019, then continued on 22 September 2019 until entering early 2020, due to forest and land fires in the Mount Semeru area.
The fires that occurred on September 22, 2019 for some time, caused approximately 131 hectares of forest area to be affected. The closing of climbing Mount Semeru is still being carried out until now, for and it is not yet known when it will reopen.
Mount Semeru which has an altitude of 3,676 meters above sea level is experiencing an eruption with the height of the ash column reaching 400 meters above the summit, and is in Status Level II (Allert).
“The closure of Mount Semeru is one of the factors, not a single factor. Of the total number of tourist visits to the Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park area, as many as 669,422 people are domestic tourists, and the other 21,409 are foreign tourists,” he said.
He added, the total Non-Tax State Revenue from tourists throughout 2019 reached IDR22.86 billion. [antaranews/photo special]
