The number of Chinese who travel outside their homeland each year is expected to nearly triple to 100 million people by 2020, and U.S. cities and businesses are positioning themselves to profit from what they hope will be a tourist boom. They are establishing offices in China, and lobbying the U.S. government to ease travel restrictions.
Just 320,000 Chinese -- 1.5 percent of all overseas visitors -- traveled to the United States last year. Of the Chinese who left the mainland, fewer than 1 in 100 headed for the United States, according to U.S. and Chinese authorities.
Chinese with personal wealth estimated at more than $1 million rank travel as their top leisure activity, according to a recent survey by the Shanghai-based Hurun Report.
Gambling is also popular among Chinese visitors. Chinese travelers on average spend about $5,800 per visit at the tables in Las Vegas and elsewhere -- more than residents of any other nation except India, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. (Source: Samantha Gross, AP, Jun 9, 2007).