Two more foreign airlines have been scheduled to provide direct flights to Bali in the near future said Heru Legowo, general manager for airport operations at Ngurah Rai international Airport on Wednesday.
"The two airlines are Hong Kong Express based in Hong Kong and Virgin Blue in Australia," Heru said, speaking for the state-owned firm PT Angkasa Pura I, which manages the airport.
He said the two airlines would start offering direct flights to Bali later this month: Hong Kong Express to begin on Sept. 11 with four flights from Hong Kong a week and Virgin Blue would fly in 11 times a week from Cairns.
"The start date for Virgin Blue flights has not been set yet, but they have been scheduled to start within the month," he said.
The two airlines will raise the number of foreign airlines serving Bali directly to 26.
Heru expected more foreign airlines will help increase the number of foreign tourists visiting the resort island, especially from Hong Kong and Australia.
As Hong Kong Express also flies to South Korea and Taiwan, "we hope the new services will significantly raise the number of visitors to Bali", he said.
Aloysius Purwa, chair of the Bali chapter of the Association of Indonesian Tour and Travel Agencies (ASITA), hailed the planned services by the two foreign airlines.
The rising number of foreign tourists visiting Bali reflects rising international interest in the island, Purwa said.
"This will ensure Bali remains one of the favorite tourism destinations in the world," he said.
"Bali needs still more foreign airlines to enable foreign tourists to go there."
Purwa added the number of foreign airlines serving direct flights to Bali is still too small to attract significantly more visitors.
Based on figures from the Denpasar office of the Central Statistics Agency, the number of foreign tourists visiting Bali from January to July 2008 reached about 1.11 million, an increase of 21.64 percent compared to 912,270 tourists during the corresponding period last year.
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