|
(CHINA DAILY, Beijing) Soon people in China will be able to travel to the United States by using tourist visas. An agreement between the two countries was recently signed in Beijing. The agreement puts the United States on the Approved Destination Status (ADS) and makes the US the 134th country on China’s list.
Chinese tourists should be able to travel as a group in the spring. As of right now the US will only allow business travelers. China believes this agreement will stimulate the vacation industry and provide mutual ties in the economy and culture of the two countries.
The US believes the agreement will open a large market of travel and tourism with numbers reaching up to 579,000 of tourists annually. This is a drastic increase from last year which was only 320,000.
Jamie Y. Lee, who is the representative of the Los Angeles convention and Visitors Bureau, is very excited. Jamie represents the first city level tourist office which is established in China. It is expected that more US cities will open offices in China now that the agreement has been reached.
US destinations will now have the green light to advertise their market in China, according to the MOU. The MOU will only be terminated if large numbers of group tourists overstay in the US.
The growing numbers of Chinese tourists, along with the tourism dollars they will spend, have made the US market inevitable. The last five years has seen China take over the Japanese market to become the biggest source of outbound tourists in Asia.
The US Department of Commerce indicates that the United States attracted 19% more travelers in 2006 than in the prior year. Chinese tourist spending was up by 35%. The spending includes hotel accommodations, communications, entertainment, and shopping. This is much higher than the statistics of Chinese spending in other countries.
Estimates for 2006 show that the average Chinese tourist spent $735 in other place, but that number was $6,400 for US travel.
It is inevitable that tourists will be spending more as income increases. The MOU will also be great news for domestic tourism.
The US market is an important tourist destination and offers a huge market potential. Until this agreement was signed the US and Canada were the last two tourist destinations which were closed to Chinese group travel.
|