JAKARTA, Feb. 16 (Xinhua) -- Indonesia's tourism ministry said on Thursday that the nation has welcomed over 12 million foreign visitors last year.
The figure was resulted from updated data after the nation used Mobile Positioning Data (MPD) digital technology in the last three months last year, Deputy Tourism Minister for Foreign Marketing I Gde Pitana said.
"Results from data update process have improved the accuracy up to 4.2 percent," Pitana told a joint press conference.
The syncing of data after using the MDP technology resulted in increasing number of foreign visitors which is 504,000 higher than the data compiled by the BPS throughout last year that stood at 11.52 million, according to Pitana.
The BPS' 2016 foreign visitors figure was 10.69 percent higher than the 10.41 million one recorded in 2015.
The MPD digital system, applied at airports and land border areas, provides accurate data on the foreigners entering Indonesia by detecting smartphones brought by them.
Indonesia has set to welcome 15 million foreign visitors this year with earnings contributed by tourism sector expected to reach some 200 trillion rupiah (about 15 billion U.S. dollars).
The Southeast Asia's largest economy has set tourism sector as its core business, replacing the previous oil and gas, coal and palm oil sector.
