Planes full of Chinese tourists have stopped arriving in Bali since volcanic eruption: Official

Chinese tourists are no longer coming to Bali by the plane-load since the island’s Mount Agung has started erupting.

We are currently in low season in Bali, which would normally mean up to 15 flights a day from China would be arriving at Ngurah Rai International Rai Airport, carrying around 2,000 to 3,000 passengers a day, who average a four to five night stay. (Flights carrying Chinese tourists to Bali would reach 30 to 35 a day, during high season.)

But flight and trip cancellations due to volcanic ash and the threat of a larger eruption have knocked that figure down, according to the chairwoman of the Bali Travel Bureau Association, Elsye Deliana, who regularly works with Chinese tourists in Bali.

China’s aviation authority has suspended all flights from Bali back to the country, reported the state-run People’s Daily.

“China’s aviation authority has suspended all flights from Bali to Chinese cities until volcanic ash threat clears,” Reuters quoted the paper as saying.

Chinese tourists are generally not actually afraid of Mount Agung itself and volcanic activity from the volcano, but are more concerned about being stranded in Bali if the airport closes again, says the chairwoman.

Bali’s Ngurah Rai International Airport was closed for nearly three days from Nov. 27, stranding around 120,000 tourists—17,000 of which were reportedly Chinese—when towering columns of volcanic ash and smoke made flying dangerous and caused the airport to shut down.

While the airport reopened on the evening of Nov. 29, it was mainly only operating flights going out of Bali, and some airlines have not even resumed regular inbound flights to Denpasar yet.

But China Eastern Airlines, one of the country’s major state-owned carriers sent seven planes to fetch stranded Chinese tourists, state agency Xinhua reported on Friday.

There are hopes that things will pick up again in February during the Chinese New Year holiday in February 2018, which is traditionally peak season for Chinese tourists, but it’s hard to predict, says Deliana.

“This condition is expected to occur until January and they will only start flying back to Bali in February,” Deliana told the Bali Post on Saturday.

Up through August, Chinese tourists had been dominating Bali’s tourism sector, accounting for 26.21 percent of foreign arrivals to Bali in January to August in 2017.

Over a million Chinese tourists visited Bali during that period—1.04 million, according to official data.

Bali is certainly taking a hit with such a major reduction of Chinese foreign arrivals.