China's vacation playground - the island of Hainan - is removing visa requirements to encourage tourists to visit the province at the southern tip of the country.
Provincial government director Qu Jianmin says Canada is one of 26 countries whose nationals will be able to enter China, through Hainan, without a visa. "Just buy a ticket and visit" Qu says.
A new route into Hainan became a possibility Monday when Filipino low-cost carrier Cubu Pacific signed an MoU with Haikou Airport to open a route from Clark Airport in Manila to Haikou via Macao.
"This is the first stage," says Alexander Lao, Cebu Pacific's director revenue and pricing. "The Hainan government is helping us lobby Beijing to enable us to fly via Macao. We have the aircraft ready to go but it is dependent on us being able to stop in Macao. Hainan is optimistic this will happen."
Hainan has seen rapid expansion of tourism to its 1500 kilometres of tropical coastline, with many of the 22 million visitors coming from Russia, Japan, Korea and the rest of China. Over the past five years international flights have increased from five to 61, with the number of airlines growing from five to 38.
Source: Flight Daily News
