Center

US targets China as next tourism ticket

(AP)
Updated: 2007-06-04 11:41

Rising disposable income -- now averaging $4,500 a year in cities such as Beijing -- has made travel an increasingly attainable luxury, and one that is often viewed as a status symbol.

"China has a booming economy, and the middle class is growing very rapidly," said Ma, on a five-day, Mandarin-language bus tour of the Northeast. Faced with this new wealth, most people "want to go out of China and open their eyes," she said.

"In other parts of the U.S., they don't have many parties. They go to sleep early," she said before heading to see Wall Street and the World Trade Center site. But "New York is very interesting: They have many fashion shows and many parties."

To mine that interest in luxury, the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company LLC is planning to open six hotels in China in coming years, out of the 19 it plans worldwide. Executives hope the expansion will help establish Ritz-Carlton as a high-status brand among the Chinese, said Vivian Deuschl, vice president of public relations. They are attractive customers both for their sheer numbers and for their spending habits, she said.

"They're very brand-conscious," Deuschl said. "The Chinese show every indication that they will be the strongest luxury brand loyalists anywhere."

Chinese with personal wealth estimated at more than $1 million rank travel as their top leisure activity, according to a recent survey by the Shanghai-based Hurun Report.

Gambling is also popular among Chinese visitors, and Las Vegas has been working hard to cash in on their desire to find a seat at the blackjack and baccarat tables. Another favorite is dining in Chinese restaurants and visiting the nearest Chinatown, in part to see how Chinese Americans live, Hentschel said.

Including money lost at the tables in Las Vegas and elsewhere, Chinese travelers on average spend about $5,800 a visit -- more than residents of any other nation except India, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Smaller businesses, too, are working to draw Chinese visitors.

The Corning Museum of Glass in upstate New York has wined and dined Chinese tour operators, catering especially to the bus companies that pass through the area on their way between New York City and Niagara Falls. Now, one in five of their 350,000 yearly visitors arrive on these Mandarin-language tours.

City and state tourism offices have increasingly been stepping into the mix, often sidestepping restrictions placed on the U.S. by negotiating directly with the Chinese government.

In 2004, Nevada -- with the state's Commission on Tourism then under the direction of Bommarito -- became the first non-nation to win approval from the Chinese government to open a tourism office there and advertise directly to the Chinese public.

Los Angeles, San Francisco and Hawaii have since reached their own deals with the government, gaining permission to open offices or hire representatives.

New York hopes to follow suit -- officials at the city's tourism office have said they are in negotiations for permission to hire representatives there.

Washington state plans to hire a China-based marketing firm by the end of this year to represent the state to the wholesale travel industry and the media in China, said Kurtz, of Seattle's Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Such individual deals are necessary because China has not awarded the U.S. "approved destination status," a designation that would facilitate group travel to the U.S. and allow tourism advertising directly to the Chinese public.