Chinese Airline To Offer Direct Service from Beijing to Boston

China’s Hainan Airlines will offer non-stop flights between Boston and Beijing starting in June 2014, an announcement expected to benefit Cambridge’s tourism industry and Chinese students at area colleges.

Hainan Airlines will initially offer four flights per week, as reported by the Boston Globe earlier this week. Even without non-stop flights to Logan International Airport, Boston already receives an impressive number of Chinese tourists.

“What the impact [of the new flight] will be is just a much stronger stream of Chinese travelers,” said Evan Saunders, the CEO of Attract China—a company that helps businesses across the country build their presence in the Chinese travel industry.

The flight will boost the economies of Boston and Cambridge, as Saunders noted that Chinese visitors to America spend more money than any other tourist demographic.

Attract China has worked with the Harvard Square Business Association and individual businesses, such the Coop to increase their appeal to Chinese travelers. The company has also contributed to The Charles Hotel’s increased efforts to accommodate a growing Chinese clientele.

Saunders said he expects that Boston and Cambridge businesses will continue such existing programs and aim to improve their visibility in the Chinese market to cater to the new wave of tourists.

“I think businesses don’t need to change much. What they just need to show is that they’re there and they offer a product that the Chinese want,” he said.

Denise A. Jillson, executive director of the HSBA, wrote in an email to The Crimson that the HSBA is excited about the new, non-stop service and ready to welcome a greater amount of Chinese tourists.

“Our businesses are always on their game; an influx of new visitors will mean they’ll step it up again,” she wrote.

Additionally, the new direct flight between Boston and Beijing will provide college students from China with a more convenient means of traveling to and from their homes.

Diana Zhu ’16 said that although she flies out of Shanghai, she is glad to have the new option of flying from Shanghai to Beijing and then directly to Boston.

Yet Zhu acknowledged that while the non-stop service may attract more tourists to Boston, she believes that the transfer-free flight will have little impact on the number of Chinese students choosing to study in America.

“I think the major drive for people coming to the U.S. to study is fundamentally the education here,” she said. “A flight can make it more convenient, but I don’t think it will be a fundamental drive for people to come to Boston to study.”

—Staff writer Nikki D. Erlick can be reached at nikki.erlick@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @nikkierlick.