MANILA, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- The Philippine Airlines (PAL) announced on Friday that it will operate flights from Clark Airport in Pampanga province, north of Manila, to Quanzhou Jinjiang International Airport in southeast China starting on Jan. 16.
PAL said in a statement that flights between Clark and Quanzhou will operate every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
The airlines' 156-seater Airbus A320 will serve the brand new route, the statement added.
"Now, Filipino residents in Central Luzon need not travel all the way to Manila to catch a flight to this charming corner of Fujian province," PAL's statement read.
Quanzhou is a coastal city just north of Xiamen in Fujian province. Jinjiang, a county-level city of Quanzhou, is home to the Shrine of Jose Rizal, the Philippines' national hero.
PAL further said it has a large network of flights between the Philippines and several destinations in the Chinese mainland.
The Philippines is trying to lure more Chinese tourists to visit the country by improving the connectivity between the two countries. About 1.5 million Chinese tourists visited the Philippines in the first 10 months of 2019, a 41.1 percent increase from the same period in 2018, according to the Philippine Department of Tourism.
The Philippines hopes to attract four million Chinese tourists by the end of 2022.
