The first regularly scheduled direct flight from China arrived in Honolulu on Tuesday.
Tourism officials see it as a gateway to more potential visitors in the years ahead.
Nearly 300 passengers from China Eastern Airlines arrived in Honolulu with plenty of fanfare. They were greeted with flower lei by dignitaries, among them, Hawaii's chief executive.
"These folks coming in regularly from China are beginning a new relationship between China and Hawaii," said Governor Abercrombie.
The flight from Shanghai will make trips to Hawaii twice a week, bringing in an estimated $60 million in annual visitor spending.
"Nowadays Chinese people are richer and richer, they long to go abroad for traveling with their families," said Amber Xu, one of the visitors from China.
"Chinese happen to spend the most money per visitor in the world, over $320 a person per day. And so that will be good for Hawaii's economy, good for the U.S. economy," said Mike McCartney of the Hawaii Tourism Authority.
With a booming economy, the Chinese are ready to travel and eager to spend. The new regularly scheduled flights are more appealing because it's non-stop. In the past, Chinese travelers had layovers In Japan and Korea, which added at least a couple of hours to the trip.
"Some places are far away and you need to change flights several times, so it makes people feel tired, but this is a direct flight and you can go far away just within ten hours," Xu says.
Tourism officials say this could eventually open the way to daily flights to Hawaii. But the biggest obstacle now is waving the visa requirements. That's something the governor is hoping to work on when top government officials from China and the US are here for the APEC Summit.
"If we can work something in that area of visa waivers in general or perhaps for Hawaii as a test case we're gonna pursue that," Abercrombie says.
Source: http://www.khon2.com
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