As President Obama last week addressed the easing of the visa backlog for international travelers interested in visiting the U.S., tour operators hoping to capitalize on one of the biggest potential source markets for inbound travel, China, mulled the challenges and opportunities that still lie ahead.
Major tour operators such as the Globus Family of Brands, Collette Vacations and Tauck are cautiously eyeing the market but said they're not yet ready to grab a piece of the growing pie. And that's partly because of the visa process.
"China had over 50 million outbound [travelers in 2011]," said Paula Twidale, vice president at Collette Vacations. "And that's predicted to increase in 2012 and beyond. Certainly we are going to start looking at these [emerging] markets. But one of the things that are prohibitive are the visas."
The Commerce Department projects that travel from China to the U.S. will increase 274% between this year and 2016, the highest growth rate of any inbound travel market. The U.S. welcomed 802,000 Chinese visitors in 2010, and an estimated 1.1 million in 2011, a 37% increase, which places China 11th in terms of the number of international visitors to the U.S.
The jump in Chinese travelers to the U.S. followed a memorandum of understanding signed by the U.S. and China in December 2007 permitting group leisure travel from China to the U.S. for the first time; previously, only business travelers could come to the U.S.
In 2008, the China National Tourism Administration appointed the National Tour Association (NTA) to assemble a list of U.S. operators approved to work with Chinese tourists based on service quality and safety standards. That program became known as the NTA China Inbound Program.
Initially, the program ran into challenges, namely in regulating the tour operators on the list, an issue that came to light after a deadly crash in 2009 in which six Chinese tourists and their guide were killed on tour with one of the approved operators. The NTA created stricter criteria for operators on the list and this past year succeeded in removing an operator from the list that didn't meet those criteria, NTA President Lisa Simon said during the association's annual convention in Las Vegas last month.
Simon explained that the operator was removed because the NTA had "pretty clear evidence" that it was selling tours below market rates and forcing travelers into shopping situations. Some others are being investigated, she added.
The list of approved tour operators includes about 170 smaller inbound operators. But there are a few larger operators on the list, including Globus and Tauck, that are not actively selling tours to Chinese tourists.
"The Globus Family of Brands is interested in a China inbound program but is not yet pursuing this market," Pam Hoffee, vice president of product and operations for Globus, said in a statement.
Haybina Hao, director of international development for the NTA, acknowledged that the China inbound market is not an easy one to crack, and operators should do their homework before attempting to enter it. Capable guides who speak Mandarin are a must, she added.
As for the visa process, that is an area where things are slowly improving, she said.
"Visas traditionally for the Chinese travelers to visit the U.S. were such a hurdle," said Hao. "The rejection rate was so high." But, she added, "I know the visa office in China has been trying very hard to cope with the big demand. ... I think the trade in China has seen this improvement for visas, and that is getting them excited and encouraged."
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