JAKARTA : Foreign visitors to Indonesia in February were down 4.62 per cent from the previous month, data from the statistics bureau showed on Monday.

The Southeast Asian country recorded 701,930 tourist arrivals in February, the lowest level since December.

“This is a seasonal effect, wherein February is a low season (for tourism),” the statistics bureau’s deputy head Pudji Ismartini said in a news conference.

The biggest proportion of tourists came from Malaysia, followed by Australia and Singapore, the data showed.

February’s numbers were better than the 105,200 tourists seen in the same month a year earlier, when COVID-19 restrictions were still in place.

“We can see that foreign arrivals have gradually recovered, but have yet to return to pre-pandemic levels,” Pudji said.

In February 2019, Indonesia recorded 1.25 million foreign visitors.

This year, the country is targeting more than 7 million visitors after lifting all remaining pandemic restrictions at end of 2022.