China offers tourists helicopter scenic tour experiences

Hangzhou Bay in Zhejiang province is showcasing its province in a novel way, where tourists can go on tours in Robinson R44 helicopter to experience the destination in low altitude chopper rides.

The helicopter rides cost 680 yuan (HK$830) for 10 minutes and luxury tourists will find this trip to be highly entertaining.

Within the past two years, scenic air tour services have flourished from megacities such as Beijing to fourth-tier cities such as Haining, where Jianshan is situated.

The popularity of the helicopter tour will not be limited to the high end tourists but will expand to the middle class as well feels Cheng, a pilot and co founder of Zhejiang BLS General Aviation.

According to the China Tourism Academy, a research institute under the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA), there were only three officially approved low-altitude travel routes on the mainland in 2013, but this had surged to 42 by March this year.

The routes that approves are Shandong province’s Sanxianshan scenic area and Jiangxi province’s Jinggang Mountain. Travelling has increased over weekends and it has come to develop as a major tourism attraction.

The prices for the tours are still quite high and most mainland tourists have limited profit margins. Most tours last 10 to 20 minutes and cost 600 to 1,200 yuan. Owing to the cost there are limited numbers of customers who take the low altitude tours. It is mostly advertisement based and only a few companies have made profits from this business.

The aviation companies rely on other range of services that include charter pilot training and emergency rescue. Most operators agree that scenic tours do not really fetch profits as the price is too high for the general tourists.

The purchase price at home is 25 per cent higher than abroad due to high taxes levied by the Chinese government, and the operating and maintenance costs are also more than 25 per cent higher as most things need to be imported.

Tuofeng, which has two airports in Sichuan makes over 100,000 yuan a day from sightseeing tours during major holidays, but on other days, to make this much could take more than a month.

Last year, according to unpublished statistics from authorities, about 11,000 hours of low-altitude sightseeing tours were recorded, which he said translated to sales revenue of 100 million yuan. This was still only 1.3 per cent of the mainland general aviation industry’s total revenue.

Safety was a major concern for most tourists especially after the accidents that had grabbed news headlines in the recent past.

The travelling cost varies, those visiting Sanya, pay more as the travelling cost is higher and if you plan a sea food meal the cost will increase to several thousand yaun. Then spending 1,000 yuan on an air tour seems nothing. But most tourists run on budgets and their entire trip comprises of thousand yaun.