Atlanta in 2017 is set to host a major tourism summit designed to promote the flow of visitors between the U.S. and China.
Mayor Kasim Reed, who announced Atlanta’s selection for the U.S.-China Tourism Leadership Summit Sept. 10 during this year’s event in Los Angeles, said the honor highlights Atlanta as a globally recognized destination ready to welcome Chinese travelers.
For the U.S., inbound tourism is an economic boon. Foreign visitors tend to spend more than domestic tourists, and Chinese are among the spendiest, plunking down an estimated $6,000 per trip including shopping, food and airfare. With 2 million visitors, China became the No. 2 source country for foreign tourists in the U.S. in 2014.
William Pate, president and CEO of the Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau, summed up the opportunity for Atlanta succinctly in a 2013 Global Atlanta interview in China: “When they come, they shop.”
And the number of visitors could rise even further as a result of new U.S. policies that make the visa process less onerous for Chinese travelers.
During a trip to China last November, President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced a reciprocal measure to extend visa validity for tourism and business travelers to up to 10 years from one and to relax restrictions on student travel. China is expected to become the U.S.’s top source market for international tourists in the coming years, according to Brand USA, a public-private marketing agency set up in 2010 to promote the U.S. to foreign visitors.
Not only will the best-known American destinations like New York benefit, but so will cities like Atlanta, which Chinese visitors don’t generally reach until their third and fourth visits to the U.S., tourism officials have told Global Atlanta.
“China represents an incredibly strong growth opportunity for tourism to Atlanta,” Mr. Pate said in a City of Atlanta news release.
If national numbers are any indication, there’s still room for Chinese visitor levels to increase in Georgia. The top countries of origin for the state’s inbound visitors are currently the United Kingdom and Germany at 92,000 and 82,000 respectively, each more than doubling the 40,000 from mainland China.
Mr. Reed said he recognizes the business opportunity: “Exploring and creating economic development opportunities to improve Atlanta’s position as a market for international trade and commerce has been a priority of my administration.” In February, the mayor traveled to a high-level U.S.-China investment forum in New York.
According to export figures compiled by the Brookings Institution, Atlanta’s biggest export industry is travel and tourism, which accounted for 14 percent of the overall total in 2014. The largest single export product — including both goods and services — was air transportation services, which accounted for $1.7 billion in export value, or 6.8 percent of the metro area’s total exports.
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