ANOTHER direct international flight is made available as Xiamen Air had its “testing flight” Wednesday, September 28 between Xiamen, China and Davao City.
DAVAO. Department of Tourism (DOT) Mindanao led by officer-in-charge Eden Josephine
David, third from left, and tourism industry players welcome the guests of the test direct
flight of Xiamen Air to and from Davao City that was launched
last Wednesday, September 28.
ANOTHER direct international flight is made available as Xiamen Air had its “testing flight” Wednesday, September 28 between Xiamen, 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 Eden Josephine 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.
David added that the initial flight’s promotion only started around a month ago.
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 October 5.
The Xiamen – Manila flight was launched in 2015 while Xiamen – Cebu started early this year.
Wilson 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-Davao 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.”
David 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.
The tourism department also noted that the average length of stay of international visitors to the country grew from eight nights in 2010 to some 10 nights by 2015.
The Xiamen–Davao direct flight was strongly initiated by Xiamen Air itself, DOT led by Secretary Wanda Teo, Uni-Orient Travel, Inc. and Chinese Tour Operators and business partners including Stephen Techico, William Lima, Nelson Chua and Johnny Go.
Meanwhile, initial flight of Xiamen Air to the city was delayed by some six hours as Typhoon Megi closed in on Taiwan.
The airline was earlier scheduled to land at the Davao International Airport from the port city of Xiamen in mainland China, which is across the Taiwan Strait, at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday.
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