Reno, Tahoe see growth from Asian travelers

As part of Nevada Commission on Tourism entourages, Ralph Witsell has visited China three times, and he is an ardent supporter of NCOT's efforts to attract Chinese tourists to the state.

To Witsell, executive director of tourism for the Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority, as well as other local officials and hotel-casino and resort representatives of northern Nevada, it's the sheer potential of the numbers the burgeoning middle and affluent classes of a 1.4 billion people fast becoming the world's largest source of tourists that holds out immense opportunities in the not-too-distant future.

For Eldorado Hotel Casino, which has a separate department of Asian marketing and hosts a decent number of tourists from the Pacific Rim, the promotional efforts could mean more travelers from China.

Rick Murdock, Eldorado's vice president for marketing and sales, believes Reno may get only a small piece of the tourism market but it's all new business.

"Sure it's going to be a small crawl.

Once they discover Reno-Tahoe,when one of them gets here, they are going to tell 10 of them that it's a whole different experience than Las Vegas.We're going to get there."

Witsell acknowledges initial skepticism among owners of hotels and other tourism destinations when the state ramped up its marketing in China two years ago.

That was understandable, he says, as visa restrictions were tighter than they are now and language was seen as a major barrier.

But once tourism officials visited China and realized the potential of the market, he says, their attitude changed from lukewarm to much more receptive.

"Because of their fast growing economy they are the fastest in the world the forecast is that they would reach our levels in the next 20 years," says Bruce Bommarito, NCOT's executive director.

"The potential to travel overseas extends to about 300 million people,more people than actually live in the U.S."

The Nevada tourism commission is the only U.S.

tourism entity with an office in China it's in Beijing that's fully licensed to advertise, promote and market tourism there.

It has signed four friendship agreements with Chinese tourism agencies, the latest being with the Liaoning province.

NCOT is negotiating friendship agreements with more regions the prosperous ones and one more with Jinan, capital city of Shandong province, is expected to be signed soon.

Such agreements are not only acts of friendship, but also acts of visibility, Bommarito says.

According to the U.S.

Bureau of Transportation, trips to the United States by mainland Chinese citizens grew by 278 percent between 1990 and 2000.

And Chinese National Tourism Authority officials disclosed to the NCOT that about 93 percent of the Chinese tourists who travel to the United States find their way to Nevada.

But when Witsell visited China the first time, he acknowledges, tour operators and travel agents had all heard of Las Vegas but not Reno.

It gave him an opportunity to promote Reno as a secondary market.

People who travel to America, he says, always go to Las Vegas, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

But they also look for different destinations and experiences.

While gambling is still a huge attraction for the Chinese,Witsell found their reception to the idea of Reno and Lake Tahoe as America's adventure place was fairly positive.

He promoted Reno with a proposed itinerary for the region.

"They would land in San Francisco and spend a couple of nights in the city, then go to Napa Valley and Sonoma, spend a night in Sacramento, do two nights in Reno, two nights in Tahoe and then hit the Yosemite on their return back to San Francisco,"Witsell says.

Supporting the state tourism commission's missions to China is the Heavenly Mountain Resort at Lake Tahoe.

True, at this point the ski resorts haven't seen a lot of Chinese tourists, but John Wagnon, vice president of marketing and sales at Heavenly, says skiing and snow sports are among the fastest growing recreation activities in China.

The Chinese are building multiple ski resorts.

"As visa restrictions start to loosen up between China and the United States and as skiing continues to grow in popularity,we see, just based on the population of China, over the next five years, it's going to become one of the most important sources of international ski visitors,"Wagnon says."The importance of NCOT getting involved at this point is to be the first and build the awareness before everybody else gets in there."

And on the visa front there has been quite a bit of progress, according to Bommarito, notably that the visa length has gone up, from six months to a year.

U.S.

officials have taken steps to streamline the visa process, such as allowing group travelers to apply for their visa interview as a group.

While Las Vegas is likely to be the primary airport for Asian travelers, the Reno-Tahoe International Airport authorities are working toward getting some cargo flights from the Asian nation.And that's because there is a well-developed market in northern Nevada that trades, according to Krys Bart, executive director of Reno-Tahoe International Airport.

The NCOT's marketing efforts in China will gather further momentum in the coming months with co-op advertisements allowing properties and destinations around the state to advertise in Chinese magazines.

The state plans to determine the success of the campaign by tracking hits on its Web site.

Bommarito travels to Shanghai next week to attend the China International Tourism Mart, one of the biggest international platforms at which foreign and domestic tourism industries promote themselves.

The RSCVA paid to promote Reno-Tahoe in this show.

The annual budget for the Nevada tourism office in China is $150,000 but State Legislature allocated an additional $100,00 for this fiscal year and $150,000 for the next.

The extra money is to be used only for media promotion, Bommarito says, allowing partners such as RSCVA and Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority to advertise along with NCOT.

Late last year, a national Chinese magazine carried 22-page coverage on Nevada, and Beijing TV ran two television specials, a result of a familiarization trip of Chinese reporters and television personalities organized by the Beijing office of NCOT.

The head of Beijing tourism will attend the Governors' Conference on Tourism in Las Vegas next month.

Part of the marketing efforts is also being directed to Chinese-American consumers in the Bay Area, Sacramento and Vancouver.

"If you market to the Chinese in America," says Bommarito,"when their friends and family visit them they are going to take them to places that they know."