REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- President Director of Garuda Indonesia, M. Arif Wibowo said the flag carrier hopes to transport 800,000 passengers from China to Indonesia this year after it opens flight service to 10 Chinese cities.
"With the visa free facility I am confident that there would be an increase in the number of passengers," Arif said.
The government earlier announced visa free facility given to visitors from more countries including China.
Arif said, the tourism ministry also supports the program to promote Indonesian tourism in China.
He said currently Garuda Indonesia is focused on serving direct flights from 10 Chinese cities to Jakarta and Denpasar.
"We already served a number of flights from the 10 Chinese cities and the flights are made by phases on contract charter for one to two years to come," he said.
Garuda also plans to increase flight frequency from Shanghai to Denpasar to increase the number of passengers from China.
"The government set a target to carry 2 million visitors from China , but hopefully with the visa free facility the number could be larger. If we could contribute 1 million passengers it would be encouraging," he said.
The 10 Chinese cities are Harbin, Xi'an, Shenyang, Chengzhou, Tiayuan, Chengdu, Chongqing, Ningbo, Wuhan, dan Nanjing.
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