Beijing, Dec. 18 (TNS): Chinese conquering the world with heavy investment but now they eye to explore isolated Antarctica.
According to Chinese media, the country’s first commercial flight to Antarctica brought 22 lucky tourists to the exotic destination this weekend.
The trip is hailed as a milestone – but is it really? And what does it tell us about China’s geopolitical ambitions in the region?
Described in Chinese papers as the beginning of a new era in the country’s tourism to Antarctica, the trip took the select few from Hong Kong all the way to the actual South Pole.
That meant a 15-hour flight to South Africa, refuelling in Cape Town and then another 5.5 hours to Antarctica. From there, it’s another five to six hours to the pole, where the flight landed on a 2.5-km (1.5-mile) runway carved into the ice.
The Chinese tour operator describes the trip as a milestone, saying it means Chinese tourists no longer have to book via foreign agencies.
The leg from Cape Town onwards was in fact organised by White Desert, a tour operator who offers such trips to the pole on a regular basis.
That means it was rather a co-operation between a Chinese tour organiser and one of the established players based in South Africa.
Does a trip that long strike you as something of an ordeal? Just consider that the usual tourist route is significantly longer.
Heading to the seventh continent by plane is the exception rather than the rule. Almost all tourists come by boat – typically from Argentina’s southernmost port of Ushuaia.
Another option is from New Zealand – a route often picked by people interested in a more historical itinerary tracing the footsteps of famous past explorers like Sir Ernest Shackleton for instance.
“Trips differ in length – they can be six days to three weeks or even longer,” Leanne Flanagan Smith of tour operator BackTrack Adventures told the BBC.
