Senior executives from the nine mainland based Chinese carriers – Air China, China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines, Hainan Airlines, Shandong Airlines, Shanghai Airlines, Shenzhen Airlines, Sichuan Airlines and Xiamen Airlines have met to exchange notes on industry developments and explore new business opportunities at the 2nd Abacus Chinese Carrier Conference (C3) held on 19 July in popular tourist destination Jiu Zhai Gou, in Sichuan, People’s Republic of China.

The 27 participants at the conference were updated on latest hot topics such as the development of online travel distribution, Electronic Ticketing development and the Low Cost Carrier landscape, with the sharing of Abacus experiences, research findings and analysis.

Mr Patrick Lai, Vice President, Airline Marketing and North Asia at Abacus, said the conference serves as an excellent forum for the airlines and Abacus to discuss and exchange ideas on the latest industry trends and developments. The mainland based Chinese carriers are fast growing in the region, and Abacus would want to work closely with the carriers and to help them optimise their channel distribution in Asia.

“With China’s tourism accounting for 5.5% of the world’s total travel and tourism industry, it is becoming a dominant influence in the region’s travel sector. As the leading travel facilitator in Asia Pacific, Abacus would like to work very closely with the mainland based Chinese carriers to support their distribution needs. One of the delegates from Air China, Ms Liu Yuan Yuan was enthusiastic about Abacus’ close working relationship with mainland based Chinese carriers. She said, “We all enjoyed the good interaction and took away a lot from the discussions. We gained valuable insights from the various presentation topics which were extremely helpful in planning our business strategies for the region.”

The conference allowed for plenty of interaction amongst the mainland based Chinese carriers and many came forward to share their own learnings and insights.

In addition, Abacus General Managers from the Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China offices highlighted the key business and market trends in their respective markets, showing the potential opportunities that the Chinese airlines could tap into.

Mr Wei Lan Sun of China Southern Airlines said, “Abacus has always taken its role as leading travel facilitator very seriously, and reinforced this by sharing invaluable information and analysis. This conference had allowed us to see the potential opportunities available to us in our major overseas markets, which will definitely help us in our airline growth and in maximising our potential in the region”