After a five month operation of Van Don International Airport, at 1am on May 27, 2019, the first international flight numbered DZ62249 from Shenzhen, China with 140 passengers landed at the airport, making an important milestone of tourism cooperation by the airway between Quang Ninh (Vietnam) and China, the world's most populous country.
With the frequency of 2 flights per week, the charter flights from Shenzhen to Van Don are performed by Donghai Airlines. As scheduled, two flights operating weekly on Monday and Friday take off from Shenzhen's Baoan airport at 23.05 pm and land at Van Don at 1.30 am on the next day, the return ones set off at 3.00 am and arrive in Shenzhen at 5.45 am. These flights will be on 162 seat Boeing 737-800 aircraft.
According to the Tourism Department of Quang Ninh, in 2018, 1.3 out of 5.5 million international arrivals to Quang Ninh was from China. Particularly, in the first 6 months of 2019, Quang Ninh welcomed 2.8 million international arrivals, with 33% of Chinese tourists, seeing a rise of 157% over the same period in the previous year. In fact, China is a potential and important market, not only for Quang Ninh tourism but also for Vietnam. Chinese tourists coming to Quang Ninh usually stay at 3-5 star hotels in 4 or 5 days. Therefore, this market may greatly contribute to Quang Ninh tourism, and in line with the province's target to develop service and tourism, especially aiming at prolonging tourists’ stay and tourism yield.
With the aim of boosting the tourism cooperation between Vietnam's Quang Ninh and China via the Van Don International Airport, Quang Ninh Tourism Department and Van Don International Airport's Management Board jointly held a talk themed "Discovering spectacular Halong with flights to Van Don airport". Representatives of 114 travel agents from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia had discussed and proposed solutions to develop tourism market of Chinese-language speaking tourists via Van Don airport in the upcoming future.
Also in the framework of the talk, the representative leader of Van Don International Airport revealed their plan to open new routes to connect to potential tourism markets. In particular, new flights from Van Don to China's Kunming will be launched with the frequency of one flight per 2 days, starting from July 16, 2019; along with Van Don-Nanning, Van Don-Beijing, etc.
Currently, to many countries, tourism plays an important role in socio-economic development and is considered a key economic sector. Recognising this vital role of tourism, in recent years, Quang Ninh has continuously improved the tourism quality and diversified tourism products, upgraded connectivity transport system with strong determination to make breakthrough in the development of services and tourism. Especially, with the purpose of increasing the proportion of services and tourism in economic structure of Quang Ninh, the enhancement in promoting services and tourism cooperation between Quang Ninh and China would be fundamental to effectively tap Quang Ninh's advantages and potential in a long-term and sustainable way.
Translated by Hue Linh
