CRI听力:Direct flights start from London to the resort town of Sanya

Direct flights have started between China's famous tropical resort town Sanya and the city of London. The new route is expected to boost tourism to the popular summer holiday destination. And so far, tickets for the twice-weekly flights are selling well. 

"The tickets were almost sold out for the first flight. Judging from tickets sales for the first month, from July 12 to August 12, around 70 percent of the seats have been sold," said Liu Jing, deputy general manager of the Hainan branch of China Southern Airlines, which is operating the new route. “We did plenty of market research before launching the route. Looking at information provided by local travel agencies and authorities, every year around 5 million tourists from Britain travel to tropical resorts in Southeast Asian countries. Actually these destinations have very similar climate and landscape as Hainan island. We will reach full capacity on our flights if we can attract 20-thousand travelers on the route every year. We are very optimistic about our prospective ticket sales,” Liu said.

This is the first inter-continental route to the popular tourist destination to open up since Hainan Province expanded its visa-free policy. Travelers from 59 countries can visit Hainan for up to a month without a visa on the condition that their booking is made through a travel agency, according to China's tourism authority. Hainan already has 57 international flights to countries including Germany, Malaysia, and Thailand. It aims to have at least 100 overseas routes operating by 2020.

Hainan's tourism bureau said the island has become a favored spot for overseas tourists in recent years, with the number of foreign travelers exceeding 1.1 million in 2017, up nearly 50 percent on the previous year. The number of international tourists reached 946,000 in the first half of this year, with a year-on-year growth of 16.26 percent, the provincial tourism department said.

The tourism markets in China and Britain have witnessed rapid growth in recent years. It's expected that over 1.2 million trips will be made between China and Britain in 2020, growing at an annual rate of 9 percent.

Wei Wenfeng, the head of the center for international economics at the Institute for Reform and Development in Hainan, said China Southern's new route will help to grow China's economic ties with the Britain, and attract more investors from the global financial center of London. "The move will also help to strengthen economic ties between China and Britain. The central government decided in April to gradually develop Hainan island into a free trade port, and the trade in services would be one of the priorities in the process, which will help to attract more overseas investors," Wei said.

China aims to establish a free trade zone in Hainan by 2020. It will encourage multinationals to set up their headquarters there, as part of plans to open up the province's economy to foreign investors.