Even the US president can’t help Chinese tourists
Print Edition
On the first day of the US federal government shutdown, a Californian resident may not yet feel the impact, but many Chinese tourists are unhappy and their tour guides nervous.
Tony Lu has run a travel agency in Los Angeles for 20 years. Four tourist groups from China’s mainland organized by his agency are currently travelling around the United States. They are suffering different kinds of impact from the federal government shutdown, which led to the close of 401 national parks, Smithsonian’s 19 museums and galleries and the National Zoo.
“Compared to the 1995-1996 shutdown, this time is more serious to us. We run mostly Chinese market business and there are many more Chinese tourists groups now than 17 years ago,” he said.
“Our clients are complaining. The tour guides explained to them that even the US President Barack Obama can not solve the problem immediately,” he said.
Some of the groups have to change their itineraries as they cannot enter Yellowstone National Park or the Lincoln Memorial, nor can they have a close look of the Statue of Liberty, all of which are among the most popular tourism sites.
According to National Park Services, the national parks have about 715,000 visitors per day on average in October. But now, visitors are being turned away.
Although there’s no figure yet of how many Chinese tourists are affected by the shutdown, some are expressing their sadness online. “I want to cry,” wrote Ms He to her WeChat friends. She had been looking forward to her sightseeing trip to the US for a long time.
But soon after she landed, she learned that the Statue of Liberty, Lincoln Memorial and many other tourist attractions on her list would be closed.
“Nobody will give any compensation to these Chinese tourists. The Senate and the Congress will definitely not,” said Lu, “And we have to do more to make them feel better, such as explaining the situation to them and helping some of them modify their travel plans. Hopefully the federal government shutdown ends soon.”
Nearly 1.5 million Chinese traveled to the US last year, according to the Office of Travel and Tourism Industries of the US Department of Commerce.
Chinese companies doing business in the US may also be affected if the federal regulatory agencies and other services do not resume work soon.
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