Cities such as Xi'an, Chengdu and Wuhan have been added to some airlines' international route networks for their rich tourism resources. Earlier this year, Air China opened a route from Chengdu to Frankfurt, and Sichuan Airlines opened a route from Chengdu to Melbourne. Except for Domestic airlines, foreign airline have also made efforts to connect the city to international routes. Qatar Airways has launched its Chengdu-Doha route, the third international route in Chengdu added this year.
Shaanxi province's Xi'an, also expects more travelers from Europe since Finnair opened a Helsinki-Xi'an route in June, the new route is the first nonstop route connecting Europe to Xi'an Europe has been a main source of inbound tourism for Xi'an for years. European countries, such as Germany, France and the UK, are the city's most important inbound tourism markets.
Air France-KLM launched the first route from Wuhan to Europe in 2012, and its Chengdu-Amsterdam route has been in operation since 2006.
Tourism in these Chinese inland cities is now seeing a boost as more nonstop international routes to the cities are opening up.