United Arab Emirates (UAE) carrier Emirates Airline has announced the launch of a new regular link to the island of Bali in Indonesia. The UAE national carrier will introduce a daily flight between its Dubai International Airport hub and Ngurah Rai International Airport in Denpasar from June 3, 2015, supporting local demand and the strong leisure flows to the destination, particularly from Europe.

One of the most popular islands in Indonesia with spectacular mountains and picturesque beaches, Bali is a leading tourist destination which welcomed more than 3.7 million foreign tourist arrivals in 2014. Emirates’ new service will add to Bali’s global connectivity, further stimulating the island’s economic and tourism growth.

The new route will be served by a Boeing 777-300ER configured in a two-class arrangement. It will be Emirates’ 148 global destination and will add to the airline’s strong route network in the Asia Pacific region which currently spans 23 destinations in 13 countries.

“Bali is a significantly important market for Emirates. There is high interest in Bali from across our network, specifically in the leisure segment. We are pleased to be able to offer the Emirates product on a daily basis, connecting passengers in Bali to Dubai and to more than 80 destinations in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas, via one convenient stop in Dubai.” said Thierry Antinori, executive vice president and chief commercial officer, Emirates Airline.

Emirates commenced services to Indonesia in 1992 with three flights per week via Singapore and Colombo, and since March 2013, the airline has been operating three non-stop flights daily from Jakarta to Dubai using Boeing 777 aircraft.

The new service to Bali will likely prove popular with passengers through its increased convenience, choice, and consistency of travel experience and will be competitive against the current multiple stop offerings to Denpasar.

Although agriculture related business remains the largest employer in Bali, tourism has become the driver of its economic development into one of the wealthiest regions in Indonesia and is now the largest single industry in terms of income. Over three million foreign arrivals are now recorded every year, the majority from Australia, but with growing flows from China and Europe.

Data from Indonesia's National Statistics Board show that direct arrivals to Indonesia’s prime tourist destination experienced a growth of 14.8 per cent over the first eleven months of 2014 reaching 3.41 million direct foreign arrivals, compared to 2.97 million in the same period in 2013. These entered mostly by air but also by cruise ships.

Arrivals from Australia represented a dominant 26.2 per cent share of the demand, while China, the second largest origin and destination market was the fastest growing with arrivals up 49.3 per cent compared to the same period in 2013. Other notable markets in the region were Malaysia, Japan, Singapore and South Korea, but it is the longer-haul markets that Emirates will be targeting, especially Europe.

According to MIDT data, an estimated 825,000 bi-directional O&D passengers flew between Europe and Denpasar in 2014, a market that has almost doubled over the past ten years, with an average annual rise of 10.4 per cent. The largest country markets in 2014 were Germany (19.0 per cent share) and France (18.6 per cent share) with Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK among the markets growing by more than 20 per cent between 2013 and 2014.

In the chart, below, we highlight the ten largest O&D markets between Europe and Bali over the last ten years. Singapore Airlines is currently the largest operator in this market with a 21.0 per cent share of O&D passengers in 2014, followed by Malaysia Airlines (14.9 per cent), Qatar Airways (14.2 per cent), KLM (12.9 per cent) and Thai Airways International (7.4 per cent). Emirates currently has a 3.9 per cent share from its flights via Dubai to Jakarta and onto Denpasar via partner carriers.