Tourism set to soar with Air China flight

Johannesburg - South Africa is hoping that a slide in tourists from China could be turned around following the launch of Air China’s direct flight from Johannesburg to Beijing on Friday.

The launch comes days after the visa immigration regulations were reviewed, meaning that Chinese travellers will no longer be expected to provide their biometric data in person when applying for a visa in China.

The concession comes amid a slump that has been compounded by the bleak outlook in the global and domestic economy, the Ebola virus and poor marketing. Tourism Minister Derek Hanekom said South Africa had less Chinese tourists this year and the introduction of the route would help reverse the trend.

“We are hoping to see more tourists next year. I believe that with the direct route, we will have higher number of tourists and recovery will be sooner that expected. The new route will take tourism to the next level. We need to get back to having 0.1 percent of the Chinese tourism market,” he said.

Chinese visitors to South Africa in this year declined by 30 percent to 35 551, compared with 51 079 for the same period in last year. This fall is in contrast to an increase in Chinese tourists worldwide.

According to the China Tourism Research Institute, 61.9 million outbound tourists departed from China in the first half of 2015, a 12 percent increase compared with the same period in 2014.

Air China is expected to have flights three times a week between Johannesburg and Beijing, that will take 311 passengers both ways, with plans of opening a similar route to the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa.

The flights will give Chinese travellers more choice after SAA pulled the plug on the route earlier this year, citing that it was uneconomic.

Slow growth

Bongiwe Pityi, the manager at the OR Tambo International Airport, said that international flights to the airport were forecast to grow 1.6 percent in the year to March.

“The growth in international traffic is low. We have noticed that Asia traffic was slower due to the Ebola crisis that was misunderstood. Xenophobic attacks also contributed to the slowdown,” she said.

Tian Xuejun, China’s Ambassador to South Africa, said that there were more than 120 medium- and large-sized Chinese companies doing business in South Africa and most of them regarded the country as a gateway to expand in Africa.

“South Africa is also the number one in Africa in terms of the number of overseas Chinese, Chinese sister cities, Chinese tourists and Chinese students. All these ‘number one’ and ‘firsts’ have shown the brisk people-to-people exchanges between the two sides, which means consistent flows of passengers for the airport and airline companies,” he said.

BUSINESS REPORT