Cebu airport eyes direct links to Europe, Middle East, Australia

Increasing Cebu's air connectivity to Asian destinations remains a priority for GMR-Megawide Cebu Airport Corp., although it is also setting its sights on possible direct connections to as far as Europe, Middle East, and Australia.

Ravishankar Saravu, GMCAC chief commercial advisor, said Japan, Korea and China remain Cebu's key markets and the airport operator wants to further expand in these destinations.

“We want to open more destinations in China both seasonal and regular,” he said in an interview last Friday.

As of last year, the top tourism market of Central Visayas and Cebu, the region's tourist hub, was still Korea.

The number of Korean tourists who visited the region stood at 895,776 in total that year, followed by China with a volume of 429,306 and has a highest growth rate among the top 10 markets.

Japanese visitors numbered 408,566 and US Americans 219,796, still in 2017.

Saravu said he expects additional traffic to come next year, both from local and foreign airlines.

In particular, China is a fast-growing source market for tourism in Cebu and the Central Visayas.

Aviation think tank CAPA Centre, in an earlier analysis, was expecting more China routes from Cebu by early 2019.

Mactan-Cebu International Airport already has 12 routes to mainland China but China has less than half the capacity of Korea, although Korea has only four routes.

South Korea is the largest source market for the Philippines and the Central Visayas region, but China has been growing faster.

Chinese visitor numbers to the Philippines increased by 43 percent in 2017 and another 44 percent in the first five months of 2018, while South Korean visitor numbers increased by 9 percent in 2017 and only 3 percent in the first five months of 2018.

Aside from Asia, Saravu said GMCAC was also looking at Australia, Europe and Middle East for possible direct connectivity.

CAPA Centre said Qatar Airways might launch its Cebu-Doha service by end of 2018 although the airline “has not yet announced a launch date”.

“Middle East capacity is expected to grow by early 2019 as Qatar Airways has unveiled plans to resume services to Cebu,” CAPA said.

Qatar suspended services to Cebu in 2012, when the Cebu market was much smaller, but has included Cebu among a list of four new Southeast Asian destinations to be launched soon.