Vancouver's tourism sector has received some welcome news.
Canada's national airline by January plans to up its number of non-stop flights between Vancouver and mainland China to 14 from the current four.
The airline's current four flights per week between Vancouver and China are to Shanghai, and it will start flying daily on that route starting Dec. 7.
It suspended the Vancouver-Beijing route during the pandemic and it plans to resume daily flights on that route starting Jan. 15.
Other airlines, such as Xiamen Airlines, are rumoured to be wanting to up their service to Vancouver. Xiamen currently flies once per week between Vancouver and Xiamen.
Other current non-stop flights between Vancouver and China include:
- Air China flying once per week to Beijing;
- Hainan Airlines flying once per week to Shenzhen; and
- Sichuan Airlines flying once per week to Chengdu.
Pre-pandemic, eight airlines flew a total of 55 flights per week between Vancouver and China, with a total of 15,502 seats.
Now, five airlines fly a total of eight flights per week between mainland China and YVR, with a total of 2,491 seats.
The ten additional flights that Air Canada plans to add are on 787 Dreamliner planes that can each carry up to 298 passengers: 30 in business class, 21 in premium economy and 247 in economy.
Combined that would add 2,980 additional seats per week and add needed capacity out of Vancouver for those flying not only to China but also to other parts of Asia.
"It's terrific news," Walt Judas, CEO of the Tourism Industry Association of British Columbia told BIV this morning.
"It shows that we're making some progress with China, certainly on the diplomacy front."
Air agreements between governments determine the maximum number of allowable flights that nations' carriers can fly to specific destinations.
This is why Judas called the flights encouraging.
"There's so much business that we do with China," he said. "We have a massive Chinese population in Metro Vancouver, and in B.C., so it will serve them well to be able to go back and forth."
He added that the flights will also be great for tourism.
Pre-pandemic, Chinese visitors to the province spent more lavishly than domestic tourists, Americans or guests from any other country, according to Destination British Columbia. China was also B.C.’s third-largest source of tourists, after the U.S. and the U.K.
"A lot of the retailers in Vancouver really catered to the Chinese-visitor market, and no doubt they've been affected with the reduced number of Chinese visitors in recent years," Judas said.
Canada remains off a list of countries that the Chinese government has approved for trips by tour groups. China last year first approved 60 countries for group tours and then added an additional 78 countries.
Judas said he hoped that the Chinese government will soon approve group tours to Canada.
"We've been working behind the scenes. as an industry. to try to realize that again because we recognize that group tours are also a very strong market for us," he added.
Overall Asian visitor growth has picked up, and is fuelling overall overnight-visitor growth to B.C.
There were 692,772 international visitors who stayed at least overnight after entering Canada through B.C. entry points in August, which was 8.4 per cent more than in the same month one year earlier.
China topped all nations for having the most growth in visits from its nationals to Canada through B.C.
There were 18,194 Chinese citizens who visited Canada through B.C. in August, up 38.8 per cent from the same month in 2023, though down 61 per cent from August 2019. This was before the Chinese government and central bank started a range of fiscal and monetary stiumulus measures.
Other Asian countries that have nationals visiting Canada overnight through B.C. entry points substantially more year-over-year in August included:
- Japan (25.7 per cent more, to 13,402);
- South Korea (17.6 per cent more, to 8,503); and
- India (15.4 per cent more, to 12,892).
Part of the reason for the increased traffic between B.C. and South Korea is that Korean Airlines upped its Vancouver International Airport (YVR)-to-Incheon route frequency to 10 flights per week, up from seven, starting in July 2024.
Some other airline route launches and extensions out of YVR to Asia earlier this year includes:
- Zip Airlines launching non-stop flights to Tokyo Narita in March;
- Air Canada launching non-stop flights to Singapore in March; and
- Air Canada increasing its number of non-stop Vancouver-Hong Kong flights to 10 weekly from seven.
Air Canada is also planning to fly an extended season of flights between YVR and Bangkok into spring 2025.
No one at the Vancouver Airport Authority was made available to discuss the added flights' impact on operations.
