Direct flight to boost cooperation with China

The first China-Israel direct flight successfully launched by China's Hainan Airlines is expected to enhance not only tourism but also cooperation and exchange in other fields between Israel and China, Israeli ministers said Thursday.

"We have made the decision to invest unprecedented amounts in marketing Israel as a tourism destination in China and to increase the budget tenfold to NIS 15 million (some 4 million dollars) in 2016," Israeli Tourism Minister Yariv Levin told a ceremony welcoming the inaugural Hainan Airlines flight from Beijing at the Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv.

"I am confident that within a short time opening this new route will prove to be an excellent business decision," he added.

The first direct service operated by China's largest private airline, Hainan Airlines, from Beijing to the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv arrived earlier in the day. The Beijing-Tel Aviv route operates three times a week -- on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday -- using Airbus A330 jets.

In his speech delivered on the same occasion, Israeli Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz also hailed the launching of the direct flight.

"We see this air route as a potential way to promote tourism, and we also see it as a way to promote the business relations between the two countries," Katz said.

"Businessmen from both countries could fly directly and fast so that they would be able to promote their business in the two countries," he added.

Katz said he was pleased with the opening of the new route, which "of course contributes to more than just aviation, but to tourism and the tightening of the relations between the two countries."

Chinese Charge D'affaires to Israel Cai Weiming described the launching of the direct flight as another major step toward closer relations between China and Israel.

He said this move, combined with an agreement signed last month by the two sides allowing for 10-year multiple-entry visas, will surely promote people-to-people exchange between the two countries and push forward bilateral cooperation.

According to statistics released by the Israeli Ministry of Tourism, the number of Chinese tourists to Israel has been increasing over the last three years, with an over 30 percent increase from each year to the next. The statistics show that Chinese nationals made 47,400 trips to Israel in 2015, 43 percent more than in 2014.

Israel is adapting the tourism infrastructure to welcome Asian tourists in general and Chinese tourists in particular, including training Chinese-speaking tour guides, hotel and restaurant chefs in preparing Chinese cuisine, and launching a Chinese-language website, according to a press release issued by the tourism ministry.