Amid record visits, LA woos Chinese tourists

The expansion of global consumer marketing efforts in China has hit the top of the agenda for the Los Angeles tourism authority.

"The number of Chinese tourists in Los Angeles is growing fast, with an annual increase of 21 percent in 2013," said Ernest Wooden, president and CEO of the Los Angeles Tourism and Convention Board.

In a move to better approach this emerging market, Wooden plans to visit China in the latter half of 2014 with Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti.

So far, LA has tourism offices in two first-tier Chinese cities - Beijing and Shanghai. Its official website also has Chinese-language pages.

Social media users can also interact with the offices through Sina Weibo, a hybrid of Twitter and Facebook in Chinese.

On Monday, Mayor Garcetti announced that the city had seen up to 42.2 million visitors last year, a 2 percent increase over the record of 41.4 million in 2012, breaking visitation records for the third year in a row.

"The continuing, record-breaking growth and strength of tourism in Los Angeles is a shining light for our economy, creating good-paying jobs for our families, benefiting local businesses, and generating significant revenue for the city that goes toward the important public services our city needs," Garcetti said.

"Angelinos should be proud that our great city is such a highly desired tourist destination for visitors from across the US and around the world," he said.

The NTA will organize an annual Travel Exchange in Los Angeles from Feb 16, which has attracted many Chinese travel agents to sign-up for booths.

"The NTA has seen a changing composition of the China inbound tour operators. Initially it comprised mostly traditional American operators, but now there is a higher percentage of Chinese-American-owned companies," Haybina Hao, NTA director of international development, told China Daily.

Recently another trend has developed: China-based companies have begun to establish branches in the US, and they're joining NTA's China in-bound program, Haybina Hao said.

Members of this latest trend include Shanghai Spring International Travel Service, a Shanghai-based travel company that also owns an airline business with 40 planes.

China had the highest number of outbound tourists and amount of overseas spending in the world in 2013, according to a report released by the tourist research center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences on Wednesday.

The number of Chinese traveling abroad reached 97 million last year, topping the 2012 mark by roughly 14 million, according to the China National Tourism Administration. The number is expected to surpass 100 million this year.

The report said that China's tourists have overtaken German and US tourists as the world's biggest-spending travelers since 2012. They spent $102 billion overseas, a 40 percent increase over 2011.

Song Rui, director of the center, said the 2013 figures for overseas spending have yet to be released, but there will "definitely" be a new record by Chinese tourists.

"The report said Chinese tourists spent on average $7,107 per person during their trips in the US in 2011. The average amount of spending by a tourist in the US that year, according to the US Commerce Department, was $2,440.

With increased spending and traveling by Chinese travelers, more travel service providers in foreign countries are adjusting their business models. Hotel groups, including Hilton Worldwide and Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide, have designed new services specifically for Chinese customers.

By August 2013, all of Hilton's hotels worldwide were providing a service called Hilton Huanying that provides Chinese tea pouches and teapots in guestrooms. Chinese food is also being served in its hotels.

Nineteen of Starwood's hotels around the world provide services in Mandarin and offer chopsticks during meals.

Contact the writers at chenjia@chinadailyusa.com and yangwanli@chinadaily.com.cn