Chinese tour operators will launch a new charter flight for Russian travelers by circumventing Russian regulations.
A Chinese airline and tour operators invented a new strategy to attract Russian tourists. This summer for the first time Chinese operators will arrange charter flights for travelers from Siberia heading for their vacation to a popular Chinese resort of Beidaihe.
Previously such service was not possible since the Russian regulations don’t allow foreign charter airlines to transport Russians. However the law does not apply to the new project because the charter flights to Beidaihe will not be organized on the Russian territory but on Chinese land – through several cross-border airports.
The charters will start for the first time on June 18 and will fly twice a week for two months. The project will be maintained by the airline Grand China Air, which is a subdivision of the Chinese Hainan Airlines, reported Tourprom.ru.
The planes will take the Russian holidaymakers from the Chinese city of Manchuria, on the border with Russia, to the resort city of Qinhuangdao on the Bohai shore of the Yellow Sea. Every year more than 1 million Russian tourists come to China through Manchuria, which is 4 km far from the Russian border. Mostly they come from Irkutsk, Chita and Ulan-Ude.
After obtaining Chinese visas, Russian travelers will be finally able to cross the Russian-Chinese border in Manchuria and enjoy their vacation in Beidaihe organized by local Chinese travel agencies. This way the Russian tour operators will lose their primacy in the summer resort.
The first Russian holidaymakers came to Beidaihe already in 1994. Last year 40,000 Russians spent their holiday in the resort which is 90% of the total number of foreigners coming to Beidaihe in 2009.