Mexico’s Minister of Tourism, Miguel Trucco Marquez. Photo: Chen Qingqing/GT
A new direct flight between China and Mexico will open on Friday. Mexico’s Tourism Minister Miguel Trucco Márquez said in an interview with the Global Times on Thursday that the Beijing-Tijuana-Mexico City route will be the second direct flight between the two countries, following the Shenzhen-Mexico City direct flight that resumed in May this year.
Trucco said the opening of the route will boost travel from northern Mexico to China, benefiting strengthening ties between the two countries. Noting that travel to China is popular among young people in Mexico, he said he hopes to attract more Chinese tourists to Mexico in the future.
On the evening of May 11, the first direct flight operated by China Southern Airlines from Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, southern China to Mexico City arrived at Mexico City’s Benito Juarez International Airport after a 16-hour journey. A water gun salute was held at the local airport to welcome the arrival of the Chinese aircraft. The route, which covers more than 14,000 kilometers, is currently the longest international direct passenger flight operated by China Civil Airlines.
Trucco told the Global Times that enthusiasm for traveling to China is spreading among Mexico’s younger generations and across society as a whole.
“Everyone wants to go to Xi’an. [in Northwest China’s Shaanxi Province]Guilin [in Southwest China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region]Shanghai, Beijing, and [South China’s] “Mexico has great potential as a source of international tourists, and major airlines have recognized this and are redoubled their efforts to meet the demand of their citizens,” a Mexican official said, adding:
Mexico is looking forward to welcoming more Chinese tourists, with statistics from the first five months of the year showing that the number of Chinese tourists visiting Mexico in 2024 is expected to exceed that of 2019, before the pandemic, Trucco noted.
More routes may be considered in the future given the growing economic and people-to-people exchanges between the two countries, he said.
Mexican officials said they are introducing a number of measures to attract more Chinese tourists to Mexico and to enhance their experience.
“For example, putting up Chinese signs in some hotels and offering Chinese menus in restaurants,” he said. Mexico welcomes more Chinese factories and businesses as they not only provide job opportunities but also stimulate local economic development, he added.
China has recently become a very popular travel destination for foreign tourists, with many posting their travel experiences on social media. The numbers show that “travel to China” has become a top trending search term on multiple global social media platforms.
According to government statistics, 14.635 million foreign tourists visited China in the first half of this year, up 152.7 percent from a year earlier, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said at a press conference on Tuesday.
Of these, 8.542 million entered China without a visa, up 190.1 percent from last year. As more countries benefit from visa-free policies and China takes more measures to facilitate cross-border travel, “spontaneous travel” to China is becoming a reality, Lin said.
The “China Travel” boom is born out of China’s unique charm, but more importantly, the open and inclusive Chinese society and the warm and hospitable Chinese people, the spokesman said.
“This is also the result of China’s high level of opening up. China will continue to embrace the world with open arms, inject new vitality into the world through development, and inject more energy and enthusiasm into exchanges between China and the world’s people,” he said.
(Web editors: Tian Yi and Zhong Wenxing)
