Lijiang, a tourist city in northwest Yunnan province, opened its first direct flight to Hong Kong on May 31, cutting travel time between the two cities to two and a half hours.

A ceremony was held for the completion of Lijiang Airport's expansion project and its opening as an international airport on Thursday. [Yang Huiguo / For China Daily]

The Sichuan Airlines flight will fly every Tuesday, Thursday and Sat-urday.

Before the new route, passengers from Hong Kong to Lijiang had to fly to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, or stop over at neighboring cities. It takes eight hours by bus on a mountainous road from Kunming to Lijiang, home of the Old Town of Lijiang, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Lijiang airport, which has completed a recent expansion, can transport more than 4 million pa-sengers a year.

Yang Chengxin, secretary-general of the Lijiang government, said the city is planning to open international routes to Japan, South Korea and Thailand.

The new routes are part of Yunnan's efforts to build a regional air hub. Yunnan borders Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar and 84 percent of its land is mountainous area. To promote its tourism and build a gateway to Southeast Asia, the Yunnan government has announced a plan to build an air network that connects major cities of the province.

The province is also building more airports and expanding its old airports.