The U.S. state of Hawaii anticipates a growing influx of tourism from China to help boost the island's economy, calling for the establishment of direct travel links.
Speaking to China Global Television Network (CGTN), Daniel Nahoopii, Interim President and CEO of the Hawaii Tourism Authority, made the remarks while visiting Xi'an, capital city of northwest China's Shaanxi Province to participate in the 14th China-U.S. Tourism Leadership Summit on Wednesday.
Hundreds of guests from both sides gathered at the event to share insights on the present and future of tourism in the two countries.
In 2019, more than 2.8 million Chinese travelers made the United States their travel destination, spending about 35 billion U.S. dollars. China-U.S. travel is recovering from the impacts of the pandemic but is yet to reach full recovery.
Nahoopii said the state is enacting detailed measures to attract more Chinese visitors.
"First, we're going to focus on an integrated digital platform and marketing, working to ensure that we have reasonably priced packages as well as convenient travel options. We will support our local Hawaii-based travel partners to ensure that they provide quality service and unique experiences while catering to the type of needs and expectations of the Chinese visitors," he said.
He stressed that tourism from China has been a boon not just for the tourism industry, but for the state's coffers.
"In 2019, the Chinese visitors were a very critical part of our tourism economy. Chinese visitors were our highest-spending visitors. Currently, Chinese visitors spend about 344 dollars per person per day. So that equates to about 254 million dollars in direct visitor spending every year, which generates about 94.4 million dollars in state tax revenue. So it's a very critical component and contribution to our state general fund," Nahoopii said.
At the event in Shaanxi, the Hawaii Toursim Authority hoped to push for a direct flight connecting the state to China in near future.
"I think one thing we mentioned was to plead our case to open up more air service and air route availability. So hopefully that will allow Hawaii to create a nonstop flight from somewhere in China to Hawaii. The other is just re-connecting with our Chinese partners, industry partners in the [tourism] industry that we haven't seen for a long time," he added.
The summit was jointly sponsored by China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Shaanxi Provincial People's Government, the U.S. Department of Commerce, and U.S. tourism marketing organization Brand USA to boost people-to-people and cultural exchanges between the two countries.
Hawaii Tourism Authority calls for direct flight with China
