MCIA operator anticipates Chinese tourist influx in Q3

CEBU, Philippines — GMR-Megawide Cebu Airport Corp. (GMCAC) expects an increase in Chinese tourist arrivals this third quarter, onset of China’s peak travel season, as airlines mount more direct flights to China from Mactan-Cebu International Airport (MCIA).

“We are mindful of the fact that our traffic growth in Cebu will be driven to a greater extent by our visitors from China. As such we have taken various initiatives to prepare for this growth,” said GMCAC president Louie Ferrer said yesterday.

Starting September 1, Philippine Airlines will double its Cebu-Beijing operations, currently served twice a week, until October 27 using an Airbus A321 aircraft.

Last month, local and foreign carriers launched a number of additional flights to China to accommodate Chinese tourists traveling through MCIA during this period.

China Eastern launched its Cebu-Chengdu and Cebu-Nanjing flights on July 2 and July 25, respectively. Both routes are operated thrice weekly. Meanwhile, it also upgraded its Cebu-Shanghai service from an A320 to the wide-body A330 aircraft starting July 1 until September 1.

Cebu Pacific has also started its twice weekly, chartered flights to Beijing on July 16.

Philippine Airlines opened its Nanjing service on July 9 while its subsidiary PAL Express mounted charter flights to Hangzhou on July 6.

Philippines AirAsia’s maiden flight to Shanghai was launched on July 7.

For an efficient and seamless travel through Mactan Airport, GMCAC has installed way-finding and informational signage in both Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 with Mandarin translations, as well as Hangul and Nihongo translations.

This is to ensure that all airport processes and directions are well understood by Chinese, Korean and Japanese passengers.

For its marketing initiatives, GMCAC has partnered with the Department of Tourism in producing “how to” videos detailing the airport processes and Cebu destination marketing videos. These videos are being promoted through MCIA’s social media accounts in WeChat – China’s top messaging and social media app – as well as Facebook.

Currently, MCIA has 8 partner airlines flying (both commercial and chartered flights) to 10 destinations in mainland China.

In the first half of 2018, it served a total of 5.76 million passengers, as it projects to reach its target of 11.2 million by the end of the year.