A new air route will be launched between southwest China's Chongqing municipality and Japan's Okinawa.

The route will be launched on Dec 27 and operated by Air China with round-trip flights every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.

The outbound flight leaves Chongqing at 12:35 pm Beijing time. The return flight departs Okinawa at 6:35 pm local time.

Earlier, a direct air route between Chongqing and Tokyo was launched on Nov 24.

Over 8 million Chinese tourists visited Japan in 2018, up 13.9 percent year on year.