Ba Na Hills in Danang Province

NEW direct flights connecting Bangkok with Danang will likely boost the business travel landscape in central Vietnam, claim industry insiders.

Bangkok Airways launched four-times weekly flights between Danang and Bangkok in May, which was quickly followed by Vietnam Airlines’ launch of an identical route with the same frequency last month.

Jack Bartholomew, Khiri Travel’s director for Indochina, said: “(The new services) will certainly be good for business and international leisure travellers wanting to explore central Vietnam and the north.”

Vietnam’s third largest city and major Vietnamese port, Danang, welcomed 659,000 tourists, including more than 6,820 Thais, between January and May 2016 – a 25.9 per cent increase year-on-year. It is also the gateway to the popular tourist destinations of Hoi An and Hue.

Tinh Huynh, founder of Danang-based travel consultants, Green Age, hopes the new flights will lead to more investment in developing central Vietnam as a travel destination.

“International travellers don’t have to go to Ho Chi Minh City now so it opens up this part of the country more,” he said, urging the authorities to roll out stronger marketing strategies to capitalise on the new services.

ASIA-PACIFIC continues to dominate global air passenger traffic growth, according to 2015 industry performance statistics released by IATA in its 60^th Edition of the World Air Transport Statistics.

Airlines in the Asia-Pacific region once again carried the largest number of passengers at 1.2 billion last year, rising 10 per cent from 2014, to account for a 34 per cent market share.

Overall, airlines carried 3.6 billion passengers on scheduled services, an increase of 7.2 per cent over 2014 to represent an additional 240 million air trips.

India saw the fastest passenger growth of 18.8 per cent in 2015 with an annual growth of 18.8 per cent in a market of 80 million domestic passengers, surpassing Russia’s 11.9 per cent growth (47 million domestic passengers), China’s 9.7 per cent growth (394 million domestic passengers) and the US’ 5.4 per cent growth (708 million domestic passengers).

The top five international/regional passenger airport-pairs all reside within Asia-Pacific: Hong Kong-Taipei (5.1 million, up 2.1 per cent from 2014), Jakarta-Singapore (3.4 million, down 2.6 per cent), Bangkok Suvarnabhumi-Hong Kong (three million, up 29.2 per cent), Kuala Lumpur–Singapore (2.7 million, up 13 per cent) and Hong Kong-Singapore (2.7 million, down 3.2 per cent).

As well, the top five domestic passenger airport-pairs were also all in the Asia-Pacific region, led by Jeju-Seoul Gimpo (11.1 million, up 7.1 per cent over 2014), followed by Sapporo-Tokyo Haneda (7.8 million, up 1.3 per cent), Fukuoka-Tokyo Haneda (7.6 million, down 7.4 per cent), Melbourne Tullamarine-Sydney (7.2 million, down 2.2 per cent) and Beijing Capital-Shanghai Hongqiao (6.1 million, up 6.1 per cent) respectively.

Mekong River, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

DESPITE such buzzwords as sustainable travel and ecotourism being bandied about at this year’s Mekong Tourism Forum, the travel sector is urged to pay even more attention to climate change and seek greater collaboration between the public and private sectors to avoid climate catastrophe.

“Climate change is existential – if we don’t deal with it, we will not exist,” warned Geoffrey Lipman, director of Greenearth.travel. “We should be careful in believing our own propaganda. Green marketing and ecotourism projects don’t scratch the surface of what sustainable income means in the future.”

Increasing urbanisation, mass tourism and air traffic will inevitably have knock-on effects on the environment, with the aviation industry set to become a serious emissions problem in the future. “The sector needs to find an alternative to (petroleum-based fuels),” said Lipman.

Failure to address climate change will increase the probability of droughts, diseases, water shortages, flooding, saline intrusions, etc, Lipman cautioned. “We are already witnessing these within the Mekong region,” he added.

Cambodia had experienced severe droughts across the country, observed Jo Crisp, general manager of DMC Peak Cambodia. “It is our responsibility to ensure that we have a sustainable industry for the future,” she said.

Sotea Sith, manager of Mekong Travel, said: “We have to take responsibilty but the lead has to come from governments with policies put in place and enforced to address climate change.”

WITH super typhoon Nepartak expected to hit Taiwan early this morning, airlines have been cancelling or rescheduling flights in and out of the island.

Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau began issuing typhoon warnings on Wednesday as the storm advanced towards the island’s eastern shores from the Pacific Ocean, triggering a slew of flight cancellations.

Cathay Pacific and Dragonair were first to announce flight suspensions on Wednesday. By end Thursday, nearly 30 international services plying Taiwan had been cancelled or postponed.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong Airlines, Dragonair and Cathay Pacific will continue to ground flights to Taiwan on July 8. As well, China Airlines has cancelled all flights plying Taichung and Tainan on July 8 in addition to some flights to Kaohsiung and Taoyuan.

Flight schedules are subject to further change and passengers are advised to check the latest flight updates through the respective airline channels.

The storm is likely to attenuate from super typhoon to typhoon status today, and will hit southern China as a typhoon.