US cities say ‘ni hao’ in scramble for Chinese tourist dollars
Airports gear up with Chinese signage and bilingual staff as arrivals from mainland expected to top 23 million by 2021
In early December, the inaugural Hainan Airlines flight from Beijing pulled into a gate at Las Vegas’s McCarran International Airport, filled with travellers eager to indulge in all that Sin City offers. The flight is the airport’s first non-stop from China, and it’s a route McCarran executives spent years developing.
A special welcome awaits passengers from China filing off of Hainan’s thrice-weekly arrival. Three young, bilingual “ambassadors” dressed in bright red jumpers are there to greet travellers and help with directions. Most of the ambassadors are local university students who earn US$25 per hour to staff the arrival and departure of each Boeing 787 from China. But don’t mistake this new tarmac cheeriness as just another leisure destination trying to bolster its brand. This is serious business.
China is poised to become the world’s largest source of international travellers, sending as many as 200 million people abroad each year and becoming the tourism juggernaut to dwarf all others. Europe and Asia will claim a healthy share of these explorers, but the US is among the top nations the Chinese want to see.
“I want somebody from China to come into Las Vegas and to feel like Las Vegas is welcoming them and we value them,” said Chris Jones, the chief marketing officer at McCarran.
Las Vegas is among several destinations angling to get an early jump on Chinese travellers and the heavy expenditures they often make while abroad. Helping airports do so is a new company called China Ni Hao, an offshoot of Boyd Group International, a Colorado-based aviation consultancy run by former industry executives Mike and Marianne Boyd, who used to focus on helping airports attract new routes and new airlines.
