Garuda Indonesia PT hopes to lure at least half of the Chinese tourists visiting Indonesia this year on to its planes, the airline’s chief executive officer said.
The Indonesian government projected two million visitors from China after it waived visa requirements for China, Australia, Japan, South Korea and Russia in January.
"If we could contribute one million passengers it would be encouraging," the Antara News on Tuesday quoted Arif Wibowo as saying.
The airline connects Jakarta to Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, and have services between Denpasar on Bali Island to Beijing.
It plans to launch flights between Denpasar and Shanghai and add 10 more Chinese cities this year. They are Harbin, Xian, Shenyang, Chengzhou, Tiayuan, Chengdu, Chongqing, Ningbo, Wuhan and Nanjing.
With more connections between the two countries, he said the airline has set the target of transporting at least 800,000 Chinese passengers.
Indonesia received 9.4 million foreign tourists last year, a 7.2% increase from 2013.