Davao air service to Xiamen due by Dec.

DAVAO CITY — The Department of Tourism (DOT)-DAVAO Region said regular flights between Davao and Xiamen could start as early as December, following the trial services launched by Xiamen Air in the past two months.

“If all goes well, then Xiamen Air will be back to establish regular flights in the city, hopefully by December this year,” Tourism Assistant Secretary Eden L. David said in an interview.

Xiamen Air, which already operates regular flights to Manila and Cebu, did a test run of the Davao market in Sept. and Oct., with businessmen and tourists mainly under the visiting friends and relatives ( VFR) segment.

Ms. David said direct flights to and from Xiamen will open Davao City and the rest of the region to tourism from southern China.

“There are other feeder markets that goes to Xiamen and we can bring these markets to Davao via Xiamen,” Ms. David said, noting that China provided the biggest inflow of international travelers within the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) with over 13 million tourists in 2014.

For Davao, Ms. David said China ranks fourth among foreign tourist arrivals.

“For Xiamen guests, the beach holiday and VFR are the main reasons for visiting,” she said.

Jazmin C. Esguerra, who served as an attache to China for almost 10 years and currently is a tourism consultant for the region, said political tensions with China, particularly in 2012, led to the cancellation of almost 5,000 visits.

The Chinese tourists, she said, already had their visas to the Philippines but were told at the airport that they were not allowed to leave because of a travel advisory.

“We can get that market,” Ms. Esguerra said.

However, she added: “We have to start again. More than 400 countries are promoting to the Chinese market.”

She said the top 10 outbound destinations of Chinese tourists in 2014 were Hong Kong, Thailand, South Korea, Taiwan, Macau, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and France.

“There’s a problem in Thailand since they are in mourning and has limited tourism promotion and offerings and we should take advantage of this because we are nearer,” she said.

“They will come here for beach holidays, shopping and the Philippine Eagle Center because they do not have that. Pearl Farm in Samal Island is also a sure hit among the Chinese tourists,” she added.

Ms. Esguerra, however, noted that tourism costs in the Philippines are generally more expensive than in other ASEAN destinations such as Bali, Indonesia and Thailand.

“So we ( should) offer perks and improve our tourism products and experience. This is a big challenge considering that the tourism budget has been reduced by 40% this year,” she said. —