China Becomes America's Largest Travel Market

The US travel market was hit hard in 2009 due to the influence of the global financial crisis, with the number of international travelers plummeting. However, the increasing number of Chinese tourists offers a hope that a recovery could be around the corner. Chen Xi has more.

In the first nine months of last year, the number of travelers to the U.S decreased by 7.8 percent compared with that of 2008. However, the amount of travelers from China increased by 5.2 percent over the same period, offering a rare glimmer of hope in the otherwise depressing results for the industry.

Bruce Bommarito, executive vice president and chief operating officer of the U.S. Travel Association, says this is one result of the memorandum of understanding that the U.S. and China signed in 2007 to facilitate Chinese group leisure travel to the U.S.

"I think the Chinese inbound to the U.S. was a big change because the MOU, which allowed approved destination status, really took much more effect in 2009 than it did in 2008."

Statistics from the U.S. Travel Association show that although China was the 16th largest source country to America, it ranked tenth in terms of spending during their stay in the country.

This also brings benefits to local travel agencies.

Ouyang Chao is the owner and manager of Jinhua Travel Agency based in Washington.

"The need of the Chinese market has increased very fast. Annual turnover of the travel agency when I bought it was eight million U.S. dollars. It has doubled this year."

To attract more Chinese travelers, many American travel agencies are promoting a new range of travel designed for Chinese. One of these new options is educational travel to American colleges, and it's proving a hit.

Bruce Bommarito is optimistic about the development of Sino-America cooperation within the travel industry.

"In the next five years, China will be the largest inbound long distant market to the U.S., and the U.S. will be the largest inbound long distant market to China."

CRI news, I'm Chen Xi.