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As the curtain has come up on the 8th Routes Asia event, Adelaide has welcomed delegates to the annual forum offering an unsurpassed platform for airlines, airports and tourism authorities to meet, share industry information and discuss their respective route networks.
It is the first time that this key event in the region’s air transport calendar is being held in Australia. More than 450 delegates from all across the Asia Pacific region have gathered, proving the success of the event and the interest in the Australian market.
Following the highly successful World Routes event in Beijing last September, Chinese airport and airline registrations are up over 100% on last year, reflecting the heightened interest in the region and the economic links between China and Australia. Chinese airports attending include Beijing Capital International Airport, Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, Wuhan Tianhe International Airport, Shanghai Airport Authority and Sichuan Province Airport Group. Carriers attending include Air China, China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines, Hainan Airlines and Shenzhen Airlines.
Adelaide Airport Ltd (AAL) has welcomed more than 60 airlines to the event – all wanting to meet with the 170 airport delegates and 24 tourism representatives attending the event.
AAL Managing Director and Adelaide Convention Bureau Chair, Phil Baker, in welcoming Routes Asia delegates, said Australia – and particularly South Australia – had grown significantly as a major business and tourism destination for the Asian market.
“We see Asian destinations as providing the greatest potential for expansion of non-stop services to and from Adelaide, and we’ll be keen to demonstrate our ability to cater for increased capacity during the event,” he said.
The event this year is host to a number of ‘firsts’. Adelaide is seeing the arrival of the Route Exchange Chalet, allowing carriers that are requesting airport bids through Routesonline to have pre-arranged 50-minute meetings. Airlines such as Virgin Blue, Jetstar and Tiger Airways are using the chalet to inform airports of their requirements for new services and their latest network development plans.
A further development is that this year’s forum is also the first Routes Asia where each airline in attendance has supplied a list of requirements for their meetings, including the regions and markets they are hoping to meet and the information they wish to receive. This enables all delegates to get the maximum benefit from the event.
The event was supported by the Routes Asia Strategy Forum (Sunday, 18th April). A keynote address was given by Chief Executive and Co-Founder of Virgin Blue, Brett Godfrey, and a number of panellists were addressing delegates, including high-profile representatives from Malaysia Airlines, Abu Dhabi Airports Company and AirAsia X, to name but a few.
TravelDailyNews Asia-Pacific editorial team has an experience of over 35 years in B2B travel journalism as well as in tourism & hospitality marketing and communications.
