Inbound business trips increased in October with the addition of international flights and other measures aimed to boost foreign investment, travel operators said.
As of Tuesday, the number of inbound air ticket bookings in October soared 96 percent from the same period last year and 40% from last month.
The ticket fare for a single trip was 8,030 yuan (US$1,111) on average, down 28% from the same period last month. The Phnom Penh-Guangzhou, Bangkok-Kunming, and Seoul-Wuhan routes witnessed the biggest drop, according to the travel operator.
The State Council, or China's Cabinet, has called for an "orderly increase in the number of domestic and international flights while taking convenience measures for the travel of foreign company staffers."
The country's three largest airlines – China Eastern, China Southern and Air China, along with some other domestic carriers, have released their flight adjustment plans for the upcoming winter-spring aviation season beginning on October 30 with more international routes to be restored, added or newly opened.
Tongcheng-eLong, another major domestic online travel operator, said as of Monday, inbound air ticket bookings on its platform grew 28 percent this month compared with the same period last month, with the price down 30 percent on average.
Among these, the ticket price for the Madrid-Beijing flight plummeted 80 percent, while the fares for flights from Manila to Wuhan and Xiamen dropped 78 percent and 73 percent respectively, according to the travel operator.
Ticket prices from big cities in Europe to China largely dropped to between 10,000 yuan and 20,000 yuan, with some even under 10,000 yuan.
