Aloha to the Chinese

Hainan Airlines, the largest privately-held airline in China, has filed a flight plan to serve Honolulu with scheduled flights from Beijing. Chinese regulators have already approved it and U.S. regulators are expected to. Service could start in the fall. This is the culmination of a quarter century of efforts to link China and Hawaii by air, and the threshold of a new day for Hawaii tourism, since China is the most populous nation on Earth and a fast-growing source of outbound travelers. A few years ago Beijing and Washington signed a treaty allowing a finite number of slots for flights connecting the two countries, to be equally divided between U.S. and Chinese carriers. Hawaiian Airlines applied for one of the scarce slots, intending to serve Shanghai, but that slot went to American Airlines, which used it for Shanghai flights to Chicago. Because Hainan is a Chinese carrier, competition from U.S. carriers doesn't figure into it, so the Chinese regulatory approval that has already been given is the more important bureaucratic hurdle. Hainan, which already flies Beijing-Seattle - it celebrated the one year anniversary of that service last month - plans one flight a week at first, expanding to three weekly roundtrips later. It will use an Airbus jet that seats almost 300 including eight lie-back first class seats. Hawaii got only about 900 visitors from China last month, so Hainan's plans can easily triple Chinese arrivals even if the airline flies far less than full. The potential for Chinese tourism has been exaggerated in many circles. The vast majority of outbound Chinese travelers visit, not merely countries adjacent to China, but countries adjacent to their own home provinces. So any estimate of market size based purely on China's huge population is misleading. But it is reasonable to assume that China can grow into a market worth several thousand visitors a year to Hawaii, and eventually thousands a month, because Hawaii is well-known to the Chinese and is regarded as the most Chinese part of America. China even has an island province that has a reputation with the mainland Chinese that is similar to Hawaii's reputation with mainland Americans. Ironically that island is Hainan, where Hainan Airlines was born.

Comments

[Christine Lu]

Whether the potential is exaggerated or not is all how you look at it. Fact, the Chinese now outspend and outnumber Japanese tourists worldwide and they're only just getting started.

Also, direct routes between China and Hawaii won't realize the potential if the tourism industry in Hawaii is not prepared for Chinese tourists the way they've become accustomed to catering to the Japanese tourists.

If the support for attracting Chinese tourists to Hawaii grows along the lines of how it did for Japanese tourists, then there is huge potential.

Take for example New York. A much farther route for Chinese tourists to travel than Hawaii, but the state of NY has taken the potential very seriously and tourism sector there is training up, shifting focus and adapting for Chinese tourists.

[j. k.]

That's good news for our grim economy! Anything to help us bounce back.