Chinese tourists discover natural beauty of US wilderness

About 10 years ago, Jin Chen’s parents didn’t know much about Alaska, where she was studying. Their neighbors often confused the remote US state with Las Vegas, a city known in China for its casinos.

Yet now, Alaska, with its vast wilderness, is among the new hot destinations for deep-pocketed Chinese tourists in the US.

“Our business has seen an annual increase of over 50 percent in recent years,” said Jin Chen, chief executive officer of Alaska Skylar Travel, which caters to Asian markets by coordinating Mandarinspeaking tours in Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city.

Alaska has become a top choice for young Chinese tourists who have visited the US more than once, Chen said. To young Chinese, Alaska’s natural beauty, the aurora borealis and glaciers have become more attractive than the crowded mega-city life of New York or Los Angeles.

Deb Hickok, president of Explore Fairbanks, a non-profit organization promoting tourism in Alaska’s second-largest city Fairbanks, has also noticed the new trend.

“The aurora is a big driver for Chinese tourism for our area and we’re seeing rapid growth from China,” Hickok said.

With help from Chen’s company, Anchorage and Fairbanks have undertaken a “China Ready” program, helping the travel industry with materials, training, guides and tools to understand, target and accommodate the market, she said.

According to the US Department of Commerce, in 2016 there were 2.97 million arrivals from China, making China the fifth-largest source country for international visits to the United States. Of those arrivals, 1.2 million, or 40 percent, visited national parks or monuments.

The film America Wild: National Parks Adventure garnered a million views in October on Youku, a Chinese YouTube-like internet platform, according to Tom Garzilli, chief marketing officer with Brand USA.

US tourism marketing organization Brand USA partnering with Youku to launch the film was an example of its marketing efforts to target an entirely new spectrum, including millennials who use digital streaming services at a higher rate in China, Garzilli said.

Garzilli said surveys showed 81 percent of international audiences who viewed the film said they were more likely to visit the US after watching it.

In April, US Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced that 2016 was a record year for visits to America’s National Park Service sites, which saw 331 million visitors and contributed $35 billion to the US economy — a $3 billion increase over 2015.

According to Garzilli, China ranked seventh in terms of total tourism-related spending in the United States a decade ago. After nearly a decade of double-digit growth, China now dominates the rankings as the largest market for US tourism exports, injecting more than $90 million a day into the US economy.

“Outbound travel from China has also been nothing short of explosive,” Garzilli said.

Over the past decade, Chinese visitors to the United States have grown nearly tenfold from 320,000 arrivals in 2006 to over 3 million in 2016, which was designated as the China-US Tourism Year.

According to the Department of Commerce, the number of arrivals is projected to grow to 5.7 million by 2021. NTTO data show more than 6 million Americans visited China in 2015, up from 5.7 million in 2014.

“Just as we are seeing a steady increase in Chinese visitation to the US, Americans are increasingly visiting China,” Garzilli said.

HONG QUNCHAO / FOR CHINA DAILY Zhang Haochen makes his solo recital debut at Carnegie Hall on Saturday in New York.