Visits boosted by favorable visa policies: experts
Chinese visits to the U.S. have seen double-digit growth in the past two years, according to official data, and the strong momentum is expected to continue thanks to favorable visa policies and government-initiated promotion campaigns, experts said Tuesday.
In 2015, the number of Chinese tourists to the U.S. stood at around 2.6 million, up 17 percent from 2014, making China the sixth-largest source of tourists for the U.S., according to data from the National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO) under the U.S. Department of Commerce. In 2014, the growth rate was 21 percent year-on-year.
Favorable visa policies have been a major reason behind the fast growth. In November 2014, the Chinese and U.S. governments agreed to issue multi-entry visas valid for 10 years to each other's citizens, greatly boosting Chinese people's enthusiasm for traveling to the U.S.
Also, on February 29, an initiative called the "China-U.S. Tourism Year" was launched by the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) and the U.S. Department of Commerce in Beijing. Under the initiative, a series of promotional events for tourism in the two countries will be held.
"The new visa policies, as well as the promotions initiated by the two governments will further boost travel exchanges between the two countries, especially China to the U.S.," Jiang Yiyi, a senior expert at the China Tourism Academy, told the Global Times Monday.
While the number of Chinese tourists to the U.S. reached around 2.6 million in 2015, those traveling to the EU, another major long-distance travel destination for Chinese people, numbered over 3.42 million in 2015, the CNTA data showed, indicating the potential for the U.S. tourism market.
The NTTO has predicted that the number of Chinese tourists to the U.S. will grow by 16 percent year-on-year in 2016. And by 2020, China is expected to move from No.6 to No.3 in terms of tourist visits to the U.S., the NTTO said.
The U.S. government announced earlier this month that Chinese holders of 10-year U.S. visas should renew their visa information every two years from November 2016, but experts said this change will not dampen Chinese people's enthusiasm for visiting the U.S.
"I've seen a lot of the U.S. in talk shows and soap operas, and I really want to see the country for myself," Zheng Xian, a 30-year-old college teacher in Beijing, told the Global Times Tuesday.
Liu Simin, vice president of the tourism research institute under the China Society for Futures Studies, told the Global Times Tuesday that as Chinese people are increasingly exposed to U.S. culture, their interest in traveling to the U.S. will also rise.
The growth in numbers of U.S. tourists to China will be less robust, Jiang noted, given that the Chinese tourism market has been quite open to U.S. citizens for a long time.
Data from the China Tourism Academy shows that a total of 2.08 million U.S. citizens traveled to China in 2015, down by 0.35 percent year-on-year.
Market opportunities
Travel agencies have been eyeing the boom in Chinese tourism to the U.S. Leading domestic travel agency ctrip.com told the Global Times Tuesday that it has launched over 5,000 travel products to the U.S. in 2016, in cooperation with a number of U.S. travel bureaus and agencies.
In 2015, ctrip.com helped around 700,000 Chinese tourists visit the U.S., and in 2016 the company is targeting 1 million, according to a statement ctrip.com sent to the Global Times.
The company also noted that Chinese citizens are no longer satisfied with regular sightseeing on the East and West Coast in the U.S.. Their travel products are now increasingly diversified, including items like skydiving and church weddings.
Most Chinese tourists to the U.S. spent around 15,000 yuan ($2,304) to 25,000 yuan per person in 2015, but for some high-end products the expenditure could reach 120,000 yuan, according to ctrip.com.
The U.S. is very rich in tourism resources. To visit the East and West Coast of the U.S. is only the first stage for Chinese tourists, said Liu.
"Many of them will go there more than once within the 10-year visa period," Liu noted.
