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US targets China as next tourism ticket

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

The name recognition, coupled with a growing interest in tourism among Chinese who have seen their incomes rise while travel restrictions have lessened, could bring a fortune to hotels, tour companies and attractions around the U.S.

The number of Chinese who travel outside their homeland each year is expected to nearly triple to 100 million people by 2020, and U.S. cities and businesses are positioning themselves to profit from what they hope will be a tourist boom. They are establishing offices in China, and lobbying the government to ease restrictions on travel to the U.S.

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"In the next 10 years, it will probably dwarf any overseas market we may have, with the potential to dwarf all overseas markets combined," said Bruce Bommarito, vice president of international market development for the Travel Industry Association.

To date, Chinese visitors to Washington state have made up a small proportion of foreign tourists, most of whom come from Europe or Japan, said Betsy Gabel, marketing manager for the Washington State Tourism Office. But that office and two partners -- the Port of Seattle and Seattle's Convention and Visitors Bureau -- say Chinese tourism could have a significant impact eventually.

"We're not deluding ourselves thinking that the first time they get off a plane in the U.S., it will be in Seattle," said Michael Kurtz, director of tourism development for the convention and visitors bureau. "Classically, they come to us on their second, third or fourth visit." But, he said, "it's a market we definitely see has potential."

Marketing efforts may use the slogan "Living Cool, Loving Nature" to lure Chinese visitors, because that has worked well in Japan, Kurtz said.

While the number of Chinese visitors has been increasing, they certainly haven't been overrunning American tourist attractions. Just 320,000 Chinese -- 1.5 percent of all overseas visitors -- traveled to the U.S. in 2006. Of the Chinese who left the mainland, fewer than one in 100 headed for the U.S., according to American and Chinese authorities.

But many American entrepreneurs believe that number could soon explode.

Noel Irwin Hentschel, chief executive of tour operator AmericanTours International, said China will be her company's top business focus in the coming decades. Speaking by phone from China, where she now spends half her time, she predicted that by 2009, Chinese tourists will account for one-tenth of the roughly 1 million customers her company ferries around the U.S. each year.

"There's more than a billion people here," Hentschel said. "Twenty percent of them are the ones with the money, with the ability to travel, from what we understand. There's a lot of pent-up demand."