Christchurch Airport will welcome direct flights from Guangzhou in China again from November. Photo: Supplied / Christchurch International Airport / Port Hills Productions
Travellers between New Zealand and China will have more options as direct flights resume along a key flight route.
The new China Southern Airlines routes were announced by its president during a meeting with New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins' delegation in Beijing.
They include the reinstatement of flights between Guangzhou and Christchurch, and the introduction of three additional services between Guangzhou and Auckland.
The Christchurch-Guangzhou service, paused at the height of Covid-19, will resume with three flights a week in November.
Christchurch Airport chief executive Justin Watson said the route had proved popular since its launch.
"Our connection from Guangzhou to Christchurch was launched in 2015, and over the following four years grew from a summer seasonal service to a daily year-round link between our two countries," he said.
"With a staggering growth rate of more than 250 percent in only three years, China Southern's growth at Christchurch expanded from one charter flight back in 2015, to a daily Boeing 777 in 2019."
Watson said the market for Chinese tourists had expanded from about 45,000 passengers in 2015 to almost 120,000 flying direct into Christchurch Airport.
"The impact of the service restarting will be far beyond our tourism industry," he said.
"Not only is the service popular with visitors, but it's key for education, business and high-value air freight such as our famous live lobster and fresh seafoods."
Hipkins said China remained an important tourist market for New Zealand and the increased capacity could bring an additional 7000 people a month to the country.
'A good first summer' for post-pandemic tourism
Tourism Industry Aotearoa chief executive Rebecca Ingram told Morning Report the announcement was a "stepping stone" in the industry's recovery from the pandemic, and it would also benefit exporters.
While there had been no "magical bounce-back" since the country's borders reopened, the tourism industry had had "a good first summer", she said.
"We're at about 60 percent of our pre-Covid levels."
Ingram believed it would be two to three years before the industry got a sense of what its "new normal" would look like, but said the increased flight connectivity between New Zealand and China, alongside a "very strong" flight connectivity recovery out of the United States, was a good sign.
"It's really important that we've got a good mix of visitors coming to the country."
Prior to the pandemic, China was the second-largest market for tourists to New Zealand, after Australia, she said.
"We can't predict the future but what we can see is that they're a really valuable visitor for New Zealand, they come down here, they get involved in lots of different activities, and they spend well."
The reinstatement of the Guangzhou-Christchurch route, in particular, would be welcome news for South Island tourism businesses, she said. And it was good for businesses and exporters interested in doing business with China.
"It gives our businesses choice, and that's particularly important as we think about the fact that airlines need to be full in the top and the bottom of the plane... they want to know that they've got good demands for visitors and Kiwis wanting to travel offshore that are going to fill the seats, but also that there's good demand for the freight in the hold."
Camping on the cards as tourists return
Ingram said the tourism industry had used the pandemic years to do a lot of thinking about how to manage pressures in the sector, given the issues it was facing pre-Covid.
"The last three years certainly haven't been wasted," she said. "We've... been thinking about destination management, around making sure that we are preparing for the return of the visitors and creating a tourism system in New Zealand that's something that all Kiwis can be really proud of: something that's giving back to our community, something that's environmentally making a positive contribution and also making that really important contribution to our economy."
Around 145,000 New Zealanders were currently directly employed in tourism, she said, a "significant" number.
Ingram said it would also be interesting to see what sort of activities tourists from China chose to undertake in New Zealand over the summer, with some indications there was a growing appetite for a wider range of holiday experiences.
"For example, buyers from China are indicating that their customers are interested in camping, which is definitely new for a Chinese visitor coming to New Zealand."
