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China Southern Airlines believes Australia is on
the cusp of a growth boom that will see more than one million
Chinese visiting Australia for business and pleasure by 2020.
Executive Vice President of China Southern
Air Holding Company and President and CEO of China Southern
Airlines, Mr Tan Wan’geng, said the boom had the potential to
generate $4 billion in direct benefits and $15 billion in indirect
benefits for the Australian economy by the end of the decade.
“This will amount to a travel bonanza for
Australia and Australians,” Mr Tan told journalists at a media
conference in Sydney.
Mr Tan was in Sydney for a
series of meetings and to attend Sydney Festival’s Symphony in the
Domain concert. China Southern is a principal
sponsor and the official airline of the three week festival.
Announcing that China Southern would continue its sponsorship
of the 2013 Sydney Festival, Mr Tan said the airline intended to
be a driving force for travel between Australia and China by
increasing its present 35 weekly flights to 55 by 2015.
“By
2015, China Southern will carry an estimated 1.2 million
passengers between Australia and China, around half of them
Chinese travellers coming to Australia for pleasure or business.”
He said that as the largest airline in China and the third
largest airline in the world based on the 80.67 million passengers
it carried during 2011, China Southern aimed to be a major player
in travel to and from Australia.
“Not only are we well
placed for travel into China because we are based in the south of
China at Guangzhou, or old Canton, we have also decided to launch
what we call the Canton Route from Australia to the UK and Europe
to provide Australians with an alternative to the traditional
Kangaroo Route.
“This will happen in June, when we start
three services a week to London Heathrow and increase frequencies
on our long-standing Guangzhou-Paris and Guangzhou-Amsterdam
routes, creating a convenient hub in our award-winning airport in
Guangzhou.”
He said China Southern’s sponsorship of the
Sydney Festival was its largest single marketing initiative in
Australia, and came about because the airline saw Australia not
just as a very important source of travellers to China but also to
the rest of the world on its global network.
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