Qatar Airways in push to tap lucrative China market

Qatar Airways, Doha’s flag carrier, plans to double its flights to China to 70 a week by 2013 as it seeks to tap the world’s fastest-growing major economy, the airline’s CEO has said. The state-backed carrier, which has just increased its routes to the country from 25 to 35 flights a week, plans to invest in real estate and employ more staff in China, pending permission from its aviation authority. “If China’s aviation authority permits us to double our frequency in the next two years, we will invest in more real estate and employ more staff in China in the future,” he told China Daily. “An increasing number of Chinese residents are traveling overseas, which will provide enough customers for carriers.” Gulf carriers are ramping up their expansion to China, an increasingly important source market for tourism for the region. Abu Dhabi flag carrier Etihad said in December it would bolster its existing flights from Beijing with four, non-stop services a week from Chengdu, China’s south-west economic hub. In July, the state-backed airline said it would launch daily returns between the UAE capital and Shanghai from March 2012. “The likes of Qatar Airways and other GCC carriers want to expand and tap into China where its population of over a billion people represents huge business opportunities,” Saj Ahmad, chief analyst at London-based SA Research said. “With greater [bilateral] technological and industrial trade growth… we're going to see air services expand more quickly over the coming years.” More than 150,000 Chinese tourists visited Dubai, the Gulf’s trade and tourism hub, last year, the emirate’s state tourism department said in October. Neighbouring Abu Dhabi hosted 1,256 Chinese travellers in August, an increase of 14 percent on the year-earlier period, according to the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority. A large share of China's tourist spending is already flowing beyond its borders, with many luxury retailers counting Chinese among their biggest spenders. In Dubai Duty Free, the world’s largest airport retailer, Chinese travellers rank alongside those from Russia and Europe as the company’s biggest spenders. Dubai’s Jumeirah Group in March said it had indentified travellers from China as the fastest growing group of guests in its hotels. Bilateral trade between Arab countries and China reached $142.6bn in the first nine months of this year up from $145.4bn for the whole of 2010, the University of International Business and Economics said Dec 3. Qatar Airways, the second-biggest Arab carrier, plans to roll out up to 15 new routes over the next year in a bid to increase its share of the lucrative long-haul market, Al Baker said in November. The airline is one of the world’s largest buyers of new aircraft, last month adding five Airbus A380 superjumbos and 50 A320neos to its order book in a $6.5bn deal with Airbus.