With Chinese New Year Approaching, U.S. Cities Lure Chinese Tourists

As Chinese New Year celebration is approaching, rich Chinese are heading abroad in larger numbers than ever. According to the U.S. Commerce Department, the U.S. has become a leading getaway destination, with million Chinese tourists visiting the U.S. in 2012, and spending more than $8.8 billion. The number is expected to quintuple by 2020.

A latest Travelzoo-Asia Pacific survey, says that 29 percent of Chinese respondents were preparing to travel to the United States, anxious to stay away from packed train stations and busy tourist attractions at home. Shop owners are decorating their shops with this year’s zodiac symbol, the Horse, and Mandarin-speaking staffs appointed, as shopping, is “a main priority” for their Chinese leisure visitors.

Director of Sales and Marketing, Matt Zolbe, said, “Making Chinese clientele feel at home is a main priority for the Waldorf. While the hotel “does not have extraordinary gestures targeting the Chinese New Year” they have at least one Mandarin-speaking staff member at the front desk and at each of their three restaurants year-round, one of which serves Chinese breakfast specialties like congee and dim sum.”

Another attraction is the state’s reputation as a tech center and for academic excellence at the preparatory, undergraduate, and graduate levels. As Massachusetts is famous for colleges, Chinese people with discretionary income desire to send their children to universities in Massachusetts.

Because so many rural Chinese have migrated to the cities in search of work in the past three decades, they done have enough time to travel back home and celebrate new year with their family members. This year’s holiday celebrations begin the evening of 31 January, when families will gather to eat a traditional meal of dumplings and other delicacies representing wealth and good fortune.