Direct flight
Xiamen Air launches maiden flight to Davao
ANOTHER direct international flight is made available as Xiamen Air had its “testing flight” Wednesday, Sept. 28 between Xiamen in China and Davao City.
The initial flight is seen to test the market between two international tourism and business hubs.
Department of Tourism (DOT) Mindanao Officer-in-charge (OIC) Eden Josephine L. David told reporters in an interview Wednesday evening at the Davao International Airport that the maiden direct flight of Xiamen Air to Davao has been initiated, planned and cooked for quite some time. But she added that the initial flight’s promotion only started around a month ago.
“This underscores our continuing warm tourism and culture ties. Further, the potential of Davao as a viable market for Chinese tourists especially for visiting friends and relatives (VFR) tourist sector as Davao has been a home to many Chinese that have roots from Xiamen,” she said.
The maiden flight, which used an over 100-seater Boeing 737 aircraft, boarded some 80 Chinese businessmen and tourists, mostly VFR.
The second flight of the China-based airline is expected to board on Oct. 5. The Xiamen – Manila flight was launched in 2015 while Xiamen – Cebu started early this year.
Wilson G. Techico, vice-president for Business and Product Development of Uni-Orient Travel, Inc., for his part, said the three-hour direct flight will mean hassle-free for passengers as they need not to transfer airports to airports and they can also
get away from the congested airport in Manila.
According to DOT-11 data, China ranks fourth in foreign arrivals coming to Davao with around 10,000 from January to March 2016.
David also bared that China “provided the biggest inflow of international travelers to South East Asian Nations with over 13 million tourists in 2014, representing the biggest source of traffic to most Asean member countries.”
She added that Korea, Japan, and China comprise the largest source markets for the Philippines, constituting 49.2 percent of total international visitor traffic in 2015. ASP (For full story visit www.sunstar. com.ph/davao/)