CHINESE carriers Juneyao Airlines and Okay Airways will fly to Cebu for the first time this month for their slated flights to China.
In a statement, GMR Megawide Cebu Airport Corp. (GMCAC) said Juneyao Airlines will commence thrice weekly flights to Shanghai Pudong International Airport this Oct. 30.
Meanwhile, Okay Airways will launch thrice weekly flights to China’s historic city Xi’an on the same day.
Juneyao Airlines and Okay Airways are MCIA’s newest Chinese airline partners. This brings the Mactan Cebu airport’s total number of international destinations to 18 from seven in 2014.
Meanwhile, China Eastern is also slated to fly to Shanghai seven times weekly in its first run from Oct. 18 to Oct. 28; it will resume operations on Jan. 18.
“Promoting the province and its surrounding areas to other Asian countries, especially China, is among our highest priorities,” said GMCAC president Louie Ferrer.
Chinese nationals, said Ferrer, are reported to be the highest spending tourist market in the world, and the intent of having greater air connectivity to and from Cebu and China is to bring the high-spending Chinese market to southern Philippines.
Preliminary data from the Department of Tourism (DOT) 7 show that Chinese nationals are the third largest foreign visitors to Cebu after Koreans and Japanese. From January to April this year, there were 66,593 Chinese nationals who visited Cebu, or a 4.45 percent growth from the same period last year.
Ferrer said destination marketing is GMCAC’s main strategy in strengthening Cebu’s connectivity.
“We have seen outstanding results from our destination marketing initiatives these past three years but this is only the beginning. We are looking to promote Cebu to other untapped markets and this includes other provinces in China. Australia and other Southeast Asian countries like Thailand are also high on our list.” As a tropical destination, Ferrer said Cebu offers natural wonders to foreign tourists at the same time houses modern luxuries. In addition, warm peoople and English fluency are added advantages Cebu presents to expats.
Ferrer has also confirmed that the company is also targeting new flights to North Asia, the Middle East, North America, and Europe. MCIA will also open more domestic flights later this year, she added.
“We are very excited by these developments. As Cebu’s tourism grows, so will the airport. We are working round the clock to ensure that MCIA is capable of handling the increasing number of passengers this will bring.” GMCAC took over operations of Mactan-Cebu International Airport on Nov. 1, 2014. At the time, MCIA had only seven international and 23 domestic destinations.
In September, GMCAC and MCIA hosted the Global Airports Development (GAD) Asia Conference, the first airport development conference to be held in the Philippines.