During the RSIR trip to Shanghai a front page article appeared in the China Daily newspaper entitled “US Visa Pact to Boost Travelers’ Spending”. As predicted by RSIR earlier, pundits anticipate a massive surge in the number of Chinese nationals going abroad on holidays given Obama’s endorsement of increasing temporary visas from one year to ten years with multiple entries. The China Tourism Academy, a respected think tank on the subject, estimates that 115 million Chinese will travel outside of China in 2014 spending in excess of $140 billion – that’s nearly 20% of the global tourism economy for the year. Meanwhile the US Department of Commerce estimated that 1.8 million Chinese had visited the US spending $21.1 billion in 2013 and predicts that number will increase by 21% in 2014. By 2021 they forecast new policies could draw 7.5 million Chinese to the US and infuse $85 billion into the US economy.
The generation of wealth in China combined with relaxed travel visas in the US bodes well for the Seattle metro area because SeaTac International Airport is the closest mainland US port and benefits from expanding air carriers with both Hainan Airlines and Delta Airlines. In fact, Delta Airlines announced that Seattle will become the West Coast international hub for its entire fleet, which promises to increase visitation to the area. This coupled with an expanding Washington State Trade and Convention Center and a dozen new hotel projects suggests much larger domestic and international trade conventions are likely to come to choose Seattle.
In September RSIR was invited to advertise inside Sky Magazine, the in-flight publication of Delta Airlines that featured a 19-page special section on Seattle.
Recently the Puget Sound Business Journal reported that Chinese visitors to the Emerald City could top 100,000 this year and increasingly, more and more are seeking to stay. That would make Chinese nationals the number one overseas tourist group overtaking Japan for the first time.
“We’re excited about the prospects of increased visitation to the region,” says Stacy Jones, Owner and Vice President of RSIR. “To visit the Puget Sound region is to love it. I know there will be a direct correlation to international home buying in the Pacific Northwest as a result of this increased exposure. RSIR is well positioned to help encourage this outcome.”