The Philippine Airlines (PAL) has announced it would operate flights from Clark Airport in Pampanga province, North of Manila, to Quanzhou Jinjiang International Airport in South-East China beginning on Jan. 16.
According to a statement from PAL, flights between Clark and Quanzhou will commence operation every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturdays.
The statement added that the airlines’ 156-seater Airbus A320 would serve the brand new route.
“Now, Filipino residents in Central Luzon need not travel all the way to Manila to catch a flight to this charming corner of Fujian province,” the statement said.
Quanzhou is a coastal city just North of Xiamen in Fujian province. Jinjiang, a county-level city of Quanzhou, is home to the Shrine of Jose Rizal, the Philippines’ national hero.
The statement said further that PAL has a large network of flights between the Philippines and several destinations in the Chinese mainland.
The Philippines is trying to lure more Chinese tourists to visit the country by improving the connectivity between the two countries.
According to the Philippine Department of Tourism about 1.5 million Chinese tourists visited the Philippines in the first 10 months of 2019, a 41.1 per cent increase from the same period in 2018.
The Philippines hopes to attract four million Chinese tourists by the end of 2022.
