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American tourism industry eyes Chinese travelers
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If there is just one thing the world鈥檚 two largest economies could agree on both wanting, tourism would be it.
China and the United States announced last week in Beijing that 2016 will be the year of mutual tourism promotion, one of the outcomes of President Xi Jinping鈥檚 visit to the United States last year.
The focus on tourism between the two countries comes as overseas travel booms in China. More than 120 million Chinese traveled abroad last year, up 12 percent year-on-year, and they spent US$104.5 billion, up 16.7 percent over the same period.
鈥淭he scale and the speed with which the market has grown is quite remarkable,鈥 said Fred Dixon, CEO of NYC & Co, the agency responsible for promoting New York City, the top US destination city for Chinese travelers.
Still, less than three percent of Chinese outbound tourists go to the United States. The Republic of Korea, Japan and Thailand are much more popular choices, partly because of their proximity.
Despite this, Chinese visitors to the US have been growing at a double digit rate over the past few years.
In 2015, 2.67 million Chinese visited the United States, compared with less than 400,000 in 2007. Goldman Sachs estimates that the number of Chinese visitors will almost double to five million by 2025.
This growth prospect has excited tourism players across the US. Dixon said his organization鈥檚 budget for promoting New York in China has risen in recent years, and is outpacing growth of marketing expenditure for other destinations.
Travel agencies and tourism promoters say a more powerful boost to Chinese tourist inflows to the US is visa relaxation. In November 2014, the two countries extended visa validity for tourists from one to ten years.
This policy has pushed up the share of Chinese travelling to the US purely for leisure. Data compiled by various popular destination cities in the US show that for Chinese visitors, leisure travelers have begun to outnumber business travelers in many places.
鈥淭he ten year visa extension is really a game changer,鈥 Dixon said, adding that the relaxation has paved the way for more Chinese to visit the United States for pure leisure and on their own, instead of on organized group tours.
Chinese online travel service provider Ctrip also reported a surge in US visa application through its platform between January to August last year following the visa relaxation.
With more tourists heading to American shores on their own, tourism promoters say they are reviewing their messages here in China. While travel agencies are still valuable partners, they have begun to engage with prospective travellers directly.
That shift led promoters to prioritize their online presence, as websites, social media and apps have become prime channels for information and planning.
More than 259 million Chinese booked their travel online last year, of which 80 percent did so on their mobile devices, according to China Internet Network Information Center.
The demographics are changing too. China鈥檚 outbound travel boom is fueled mostly by a new generation of travelers. Just over two-thirds of China鈥檚 overseas tourists in 2014 were born after 1980, data compiled by Goldman Sachs show.
All these changes impact travel decisions. Promoters say group travelers want to see iconic sites and things they have seen on TV and in the movies. But reaching out to the new generation of savvy Chinese outbound travelers takes more than that.
The appeal for them, Dixon said, lies beneath the surface, in lesser known communities, parks and museums that add more personal character to their travel experience.
鈥淭his is an exciting time,鈥 he said. 鈥淵ou don鈥檛 often see a market emerge the way China has. And we probably won鈥檛 see anything like this again.鈥
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