Emerging from a year fraught with setbacks that included a deadly motorcoach crash and the H1N1 flu outbreak, the still-nascent China inbound travel industry is poised to regain momentum in 2010.
The Commerce Department forecasts that inbound travel from China will increase 15% this year, compared with 2009, and that it will exceed 800,000 travelers by 2013.
But challenges remain. Noel Hentschel, chairwoman of AmericanTours International, warned last week that the huge potential of the Chinese source market is threatened by poorly regulated operators trying to exploit the market. (See more with Hentschel, In the Hot Seat.)
ATI, an inbound tour operator, is pushing for stricter regulation and enforcement of China inbound products and providers following a crash near Hoover Dam in January 2009 in which six Chinese tourists and their guide were killed.
Galaxy Tour, the company that organized the Hoover Dam tour, is still operating and Sam Gong, general manager for Galaxy Tour in New York, said it was still on the National Tour Association's China Inbound Program list of approved operators, a list recognized by both the U.S. and Chinese governments.
Immediately following the accident, the Prescott, Ariz., Daily Courier reported that according to the Arizona Department of Public Safety, the bus belonged to D.W. Tours of San Gabriel, Calif. The National Transportation Safety Board has not yet released a report on the accident.
NTA states on its website that to be eligible for the China Inbound Program, "the tour operator shall commit to reviewing crash data, safety ratings and safety records of motorcoach subcontractors utilized for China inbound group travel."
After the crash, NTA amended its qualifications for the China Inbound Program and introduced a best-practices list to address concerns not only about safety but about the overall quality of the Chinese tourism experience.
For example, the criteria require that the location and quality of lodging be accurately portrayed in advertising and that shopping trips be conducted, without coercion, at reputable shopping facilities.
NTA President Lisa Simon said that as of February 2009, the list contained 177 approved operators; as of January 2010, there were 162, an 8.5% drop.
The companies that dropped off the list "either no longer met the qualifications or chose not to renew their approved status," Simon said.
While Simon said NTA can issue criteria, she added it "is not a law enforcement body."
But Hentschel remains concerned about the future if tighter safety and quality controls are not enacted. For one thing, she said, the insurance requirement "should be at least $8 million to $10 million."
ATI's president, Michael Fitzpatrick, added that if the requirement for entry into the program is "one year in business and $1 million in insurance, then sometime in the not-too-distant future there will be another accident." If that happens, he said, the Chinese government might well advise its citizens against travel to the U.S.
Such concerns led to several high-level meetings in January involving industry officials, the Commerce Department and the China National Tourism Administration. The two governments agreed on a two-year working plan to grow tourism market opportunities, a task being carried out by the U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade's Tourism Working Group.
Hentschel was involved in discussions about ways to enhance safety as well as ways to expand China tourism to all regions of the U.S.
The NTA also met with the Commerce Department and the CNTA in January to "discuss education for both the U.S. and Chinese trade," Simon said.
"We learned that the Chinese leisure group traveler hopes to see more destinations throughout the U.S., and they want to have the best quality experience," Simon wrote in an email. "We continue to seek ways to improve the experience of leisure group travelers from China."
