The friendship agreements that Nevada tourism officials just signed with three Chinese provinces have a lot more to do with business than they have to do with friendship.
And some of the business is likely to head toward northern Nevada.
In the last days before he stepped down as director of the Nevada Commission on Tourism to become vice president of the Travel Industry Association in Washington, D.C., Bruce Bommarito inked tourism friendship agreements with tourism officials in the Chinese provinces of Shandong, Hubei and Guangdong.
The name of the agreements is deceptive, said Larry Friedman, who now serves as interim director of the commission on tourism. In fact, they open the pipeline for Chinese visitors to Nevada from the three provinces.
In China, he said, tourists arrange their vacations through travel agents. And travel agents will arrange trips only to locations that have friendship agreements with the provincial government.
"These agreements are crucial," Friedman said. "They open doors with the travel agents, with the media and with the governments."
Nevada now has friendship agreements with seven provinces, and Friedman said the deals provide more fuel for a major push to attract Chinese visitors.
The state was the first to open a licensed office in China, and that agreement inked in 2004 allows the state to advertise and promote tourism throughout the country of 1.4 billion.
While research finds that most potential visitors know about Las Vegas, Friedman said they also have an interest in northern Nevada attractions.
In part because of the popularity of reruns of the TV Western "Bonanza," Chinese consumers have an interest in Lake Tahoe and Virginia City, he said.
State tourism officials hope the "lock your love" attraction at Lovelock an attraction that replicates a popular Chinese custom may help to draw visitors from China into rural Nevada.
One Chinese province Hubei even has expressed interest in linking its tourism Web site to that of Nevada to increase knowledge among potential visitors from each side of the world.
