MANILA -- The Department of Tourism (DOT) is expecting an influx of more Chinese tourists to the country with the first-ever direct charter flight from Xiamen (XMN), a coastal city in Fujian Province of China to Puerto Princesa City (PPS), Palawan starting February 2018.
On Monday, DOT Secretary Wanda Tulfo-Teo said they continue to welcome more Chinese tourists to the country as part of the improved diplomatic relationship between Manila and Beijing since President Rodrigo Duterte's state visit to China in 2017.
The department paved way for the creation of the XMN-PPS route which will be launched on February 10 by C&D Travel Service China, a charter operator based in Xiamen, with Philippine Airlines (PAL) as the partner carrier.
According to the agency, regular operations will start on February 14 and 18, which will accommodate more visitors from mainland China.
PAL will be utilizing an Airbus A320 with an estimated 160 dual class seat passenger capacity for the said charter flight.
“Just for starters, the new route will produce a total of 480 international air seats just for that period alone," said Benito Bengzon, Jr., DOT Undersecretary for Tourism Development.
"This is on top of the other new routes that Chinese carriers have opened up direct to other tourist destinations in the Philippines last year,” he added.
Bengzon bared that another route the Philippine Route Development Team is working on is the Tiajin (TJN)-Puerto Princesa (PPS).
"The development of new routes is in consonance with our National Tourism Development Plan’s strategy to improve air connectivity from major tourist source markets to the Philippines,” he said in a statement.
To meet the growing demand of Chinese visitors to come to Boracay, Xiamen Airlines earlier this month mounted its direct air commercial services from Fuzhou (FOC), China to Kalibo, Aklan (KLO) using Airbus A321 with 197 seat passenger capacity on a three times weekly frequency.
The said new route was launched last January 12 by Xiamen Airlines with Uni-Orient Travel (PHL) as its major partner.
China, the second largest source market of the country following Korea, produced 968,447 tourist arrivals from January to December last year.
It is a huge growth of 43.33 percent from the 2016 Chinese arrivals of 675,663.
DOT Route Development Team Head Erwin Balane said the new FOC-KLO route will produce up to 591 international air seats bound for the Philippines per week or a total of 30,732 seats per year. (PNA)
