Visit California last month launched its first direct-to-consumer marketing campaign to promote travel to the state from China.
"We're in this for the long haul," said Caroline Beteta, president and CEO of Visit California. "For the last decade, that market has grown by 897%."
China is expected to become the top overseas market to California this year, she said.
Visit California, the state's nonprofit destination marketing organization, plans to increase its annual China marketing budget by $1 million this year and is investing $1.6 million to attract Chinese visitors.
Beteta said Visit California moved funds around to increase its investment in the China inbound market. The organization gets its funding through an assessment paid by the state's travel and tourism industry.
The campaign was announced as part of Gov. Jerry Brown's Trade and Investment Mission to China, which took place last month. Brown and Beteta also announced the appointment of tourism ambassador Gao Yuanyuan, a model and actress from China, during a press conference in Shanghai.
The campaign is the first from Visit California to target the Chinese consumer directly. The California state tourism board opened offices in Beijing and Shanghai in 2008 to market to the trade.
China is not only California's largest inbound market, it's also the one with the fastest growth: As recently as 2011, China was California's fourth-largest overseas market. The number of Chinese visitors to California is expected to increase 113% between 2011 and 2015, to a projected total of 1.1 million annual arrivals.
The campaign kicked off April 8 with billboards throughout Shanghai promoting Visit California's Sina Weibo website and with online banner ads on April 10. (Sina Weibo is a Chinese social media site similar to Facebook or Twitter.)