<![CDATA[Open Government Data (OGD) in tourism provides opportunities for data-driven analytics to support destination management policies. In policy practice, tourism OGD is often accepted at face value as a direct representation of real-world conditions, even though such data are constructed through definitions, recording procedures, and measurement choices. Therefore, a philosophy of science perspective is essential in data governance. This article analyzes an Open Data Jabar dataset on the number of tourist visits by visitor type and district/city in West Java Province for the period 2014–2024 (n = 565; 27 districts/cities; two visitor categories: domestic and international). The data science approach includes data quality auditing (completeness and consistency), time-series aggregation, spatial concentration measurement using the Gini coefficient, and a comparison of shock–recovery patterns in tourist visits before and after the pandemic. The results indicate a decline in total visits of -50.6% in 2020 compared to 2019, with international visits experiencing the sharpest drop (-82.8%). By 2024, total visits reached 64,517,298, dominated by domestic tourists (63,963,443; international share 0.9%). Spatial concentration in 2024 is reflected by a Gini coefficient of 0.429, with the top five regions accounting for 44.2% of total visits. The discussion emphasizes that visitor counts are epistemic representations shaped by definitions, reporting practices, and data cleaning processes. Therefore, policy recommendations should be accompanied by data provenance, metadata, and explicit uncertainty annotations to avoid the reification of indicators.]]>
