Hawaii’s tourism market, which saw slowdowns last year in both visitor arrivals and spending, will get a much-needed boost beginning today when Air China brings in its first nonstop flight from Beijing to Honolulu.
The new service will be three days a week and will precede Hawaiian Airlines’ new service between Beijing and Honolulu, which is due to begin April 16. Hawaiian also will fly three times a week between the two cities.
China Eastern Airlines, which flies between Honolulu and Shanghai, is the only other carrier offering nonstop service linking Hawaii and China. The airline increased its frequency last month to five times a week from its previous three times a week.
Bringing in visitors from China is part of the Hawaii Tourism Authority’s long-term strategy to diversify departure cities in multiple major markets in Asia, according to David Uchiyama, HTA vice president of brand management.
"Being able to open up Beijing is another phase of developing China as a whole and in terms of an inbound market to Hawaii," Uchiyama said. "These flights from Air China open up Beijing, and then following Air China’s three flights a week, Hawaiian comes into the market in April, which will bring a nice balance of origination points between Shanghai and Beijing."
Beijing-based Air China, founded in 1988, is expected to bring in 270 passengers, including top airline officials, travel agents and Chinese media, on the inaugural flight. The flight is scheduled to arrive at 4:30 p.m. at Honolulu Airport.
"It’s a new entry for them into the market, so the responsibility is on us to cultivate demand out of Beijing and Shanghai, and all of China for that matter, so we can develop that market further," Uchiyama said.
Hawaii has long coveted China as a growth market. In August the HTA projected it would have 149,914 visitors come to Hawaii in 2013, up 28.3 percent over 116,866 in 2012.
But Uchiyama admitted that HTA won’t have reached its 2013 target when the final numbers are sorted out.
"I know we are tracking a little bit soft to what our August projections were," Uchiyama said. "We anticipated the incremental flights per week from China Eastern were going to increase sooner rather than in December, so our numbers were based on being able to grow the frequency earlier in the year."
Through November, Chinese arrivals were up 13 percent to 123,468 from 109,244 in the year-earlier period.
The HTA’s latest projection for 2014 is 182,000 visitors.
