The prospect of increasing travel to and from China was one of the main talking points this week, as South Africa formally joined the Bric (Brazil, Russia, India, China) group of countries, although this should also lead to more business and exchange of tourists with the three others – especially Brazil and India.
But, according to airlines and travel agents, travel between this country and China has been growing steadily for some time and, apart from the amount of Chinese imports in our shops, small businesses run by Chinese are a familiar sight in Cape Town city centre and several of our suburbs. The only Chinese airline to come to this country – China Eastern – carried more passengers from here to its refuelling stop in the Maldives than to China itself and withdrew fairly soon.
SAA is expected to launch a flight to Beijing before long (the date has not been announced yet) and, meanwhile, Cathay Pacific Airlines and SAA are carrying heavy passenger loads on their daily flights between Johannesburg and Hong Kong and Singapore Airlines, which flies here as well as to Johannesburg, has been bringing increasing numbers of Chinese passengers.
David Ryan, manager of Cathay Pacific in this country, told me it regularly considers the possible advantages of flying to Cape Town but so far has been put off by the seasonality of our tourism market. But, as I mentioned last week, this has not deterred Emirates from doubling its services to Cape Town to two a week, at what is normally the start of our low season for tourism, encouraged by signs that this situation is changing at last and by the number of Chinese passengers it is already carrying here by way of its home airport in Dubai.
Cathay Pacific’s worldwide flights were badly affected during the recession, although its flights to Johannesburg continued to perform well, and according to Ryan, the route is attracting growing two-way passenger numbers particularly from China and other destinations in the Far East.
In addition to tourists and business people coming here it is also bringing Chinese labour to work in other African countries that have attracted Chinese investment, particularly neighbouring Angola.
Ryan pointed out that South Africa is one of the few airline markets on our continent big enough to justify direct flights and, therefore, is growing in importance as a gateway.
This, of course, is one of the reasons business people, including designers and architects, and people in the performing arts, from Singapore are also forming ties with Cape Town. This is expected to lead to investment in new businesses here, while some plan to use this city as a base from which to travel into the rest of Africa. So that should lead to more direct flights to the city state from here.
Ryan said that hosting the Olympics in Beijing had led to changes that made travel in China easier for tourists from this country, such as street signs that could be read by Europeans and taxi drivers who could speak English.
Ryan said: “The Beijing Olympics helped to arouse more interest in China and changed people’s perceptions of the country in the same way that hosting the soccer World Cup changed perceptions of South Africa. It made people realise how much China has to offer.”
He told me China was a particularly attractive market for tourism because, like Japan, it had retained its individual culture while many other destinations in the world were growing more similar to each other and to South Africa.
Lim Wei-Ping, Singapore Airlines’ manager in the Cape, said the number of passengers from China had been growing steadily for a year, as the population grew more affluent and could travel more easily.The growth in numbers was clearly not a temporary thing.
German airline Lufthansa, which flies daily to Johannesburg all year round and to Cape Town during the summer will be one of the launch customers for Boeing’s new, modernised and fuel-economic version of that old favourite, the 747. The new Boeing 747-800 Intercontinental began its flight test programme last month and the first is due to be delivered at the end of this year.
According to Boeing, it will have the lowest seat-mile cost of any large commercial airliner – 12 percent lower than the 747-400, emit 16 percent less carbon and generate 30 percent less noise. – Audrey.D’[email protected] - Weekend Argus