The Indonesian government and business sectors in Bali have expressed their confidence that the Japanese influx would improve this year, though the global economy is gloomy, a media reported here on Monday.

One reason was that there are more frequent flight from the Indonesia's tourism industry center to Japan and more promotion in the country in the Pacific.

"We are happy that Garuda Indonesia has finally opened a direct flight from Bali's Ngurah Rai International Airport to Haneda International Airport in Tokyo, Japan, five times a week. We hope that it will increase the numbers of Japanese visitors to Bali in the coming days," Tourism and Creative Economy Minister Mari Elka Pangestu was quoted by the Jakarta Post as saying.

Since late April, the national carrier, Garuda Indonesia, has been operating the Airbus 330 for flight GA 887, which can carry over 200 passengers, for the newly launched, five-times-a-week route between Ngurah Rai and Haneda. Aside from the new route, Garuda Indonesia also operates direct flights between Jakarta and Narita, Denpasar and Narita, as well as Denpasar and Osaka, all of which operate on a daily basis.

"We also expect to be flying everyday from Ngurah Rai to Haneda. We are hopeful this new route may motivate more Japanese to come to Bali, and Indonesia, in general," said Garuda Indonesia Bali branch general manager, Didi Triatmojo, previously.

The ministry also assured the industry it will conduct a greater number of promotional activities in the "Land of the Rising Sun."

"With improved quality and larger-scale promotions in Japan, we are optimistic that things will turn out better than they have been," said Mari, acknowledging that the records show a deeper slump of Japanese visitors coming to Bali, than Japanese visitors coming to Jakarta.

Bali Central Statistics Agency (BPS Bali) recorded a 19.27 percent drop in Japanese tourists in March, to only 13,955 Japanese visitors, down from the 17,825 in the same period last year.

For the first time in years, Japanese tourists ranked the fourth in visitor numbers, below Australia, China and Malaysia.

For many years, the number of Japanese visitors always ranked at the top of the list of foreign visitors to Bali.