Tourism authorities representing Western Australia (WA) and Queensland are keen on establishing direct links with China.

Following Queensland’s recent announcement of the in-principle agreement between a Chinese airline and Queensland authorities to work closely together to remove possible barriers for flights between Chinese cities and Brisbane, Western Australia has expressed interest for direct connectivity.

“It would be great for us as a tourism market if we could have a direct link between China and Western Australia. If we could fly direct to, say, Shanghai in China and any number of other destinations in Korea and Japan, it would be huge because they are such massive markets. Like the Japanese, the Chinese would rather have a direct route to WA than having to change planes. Clearly, if we could achieve this, the numbers of Chinese people visiting WA would grow considerably. Tens of thousands of Chinese people now have sufficient wealth to look around the world for holiday destinations for themselves and their families,” said WA Premier Alan Carpenter. “Discussions have already taken place at agency levels about direct flights to Perth.”

On China-Queensland flights, it was recently indicated that China Southern Airlines, Tourism Queensland and the Brisbane Airport Corporation will form a working group to further discuss the airline’s interest in operating from Guangzhou to Brisbane.

Queensland Premier Peter Beattie said, “There are a number of technical and operational issues being worked through but China Southern senior executives will be traveling to Queensland later this month and they will have further discussions with Queensland government, aviation and tourism industry representatives.” According to him, China Eastern and Shanghai Airlines have also shown interest in a non-stop service from Shanghai to Brisbane.

“The forecast growth of about 16 percent annually over the next decade could mean as much as $6 billion to the Queensland economy,” Beattie said. 

Beattie said scheduled air services capacity from China to Australia increased almost 50 percent last year, but there were currently no direct flights from China to Queensland. “I’d like to see some non-stop services directly to Brisbane to cater for those Chinese visitors to Queensland who currently must arrive through either Sydney or Melbourne or through offshore hubs such as Singapore and Hong Kong,” he said.