COMMENTARY
Hawai'i misses boat on Chinese tourists
By Pang Yong
Hawai'i is a beautiful place. Year after year, visitors are enticed to the Islands by the charming white-sand beaches lined with coconut trees swaying in the gentle trade winds under a blue sky.
As one of the hottest tourist spots in the world, Hawai'i attracts millions of holiday-makers each year from the U.S. Mainland and foreign countries, bringing in billions of dollars to this otherwise resource-lacking island state.
PANG YONG
I never dreamed I could see Hawai'i's beauty in person, but I am a lucky guy. My generous boss in Beijing granted me permission to participate in the Parvin Fellowship Program for nine months of journalism training at the University of Hawai'i.
While I spend most of my time on academic work on campus, my weekends and holidays usually are spent at such tourist spots as Waikiki, Diamond Head, the North Shore and even the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island.
Other Chinese aren't so lucky. Visiting Hawai'i isn't easy, because the U.S. Embassy in Beijing does not issue visitor visas to Chinese.
Contrary to the U.S. government's icy attitude toward Chinese visitors, 28 tourist destinations around the world — including Japan, Australia, Southeast Asia and major EU countries — are welcoming Chinese holiday-makers with enthusiasm, as they know tourist money can help revitalize their gloomy economy.
Thanks to booming economic growth and simplified passport procedures, China's outbound tourism is witnessing high-speed development. According to official Chinese statistics, 11.84 million Chinese tourists went abroad in the first eight months of 2003, a 15 percent increase over the same period in 2002.
That number is projected to soar to 50 million by 2010 and 100 million by 2020.
China has surpassed Japan for the first time as Asia's largest source of outbound tourists. The World Tourism Organization predicts that China will become the fourth-largest source of outbound tourists by 2020.
Impressed by China's potential, foreign travel agencies are vying for their share with specially designed packages. For instance,as China records the world's largest number of newlyweds, the tour companies try to tap into this market with honeymoon tours for the young middle class.
I wonder why Hawai'i — the perfect honeymoon spot — has not found a way to garner its share of this burgeoning market. I am especially puzzled because Hawai'i enjoys a special reputation in China, giving it an advantage over other tourist destinations.
In fact, Xia Wei Yi — "Hawai'i" in Chinese — has become synonymous with beautiful coastal resorts. Hainan island in southern China, a hot domestic destination with similar natural beauty and climate, has dubbed itself the Dong Fang Xia Wei Yi, or Oriental Hawai'i.
In addition to its natural beauty, Hawai'i enjoys a historical relationship with China through Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, commonly regarded as the father of modern China. Most Chinese learn about the island state through history textbooks about the democratic movement forerunner who led the revolution to overthrow feudalist rulers and establish a republic.
Chinese students learn that Dr. Sun was enlightened about Western democracy while educated in a place with the unusual-sounding name Honolulu. Anything in Hawai'i related to this great leader definitely will be a good selling point.
But before Hawai'i can attract more visitors from China, it needs to press Washington to seek an ADS (authorized destination status) agreement with Beijing, which will allow visitor visas for Chinese to visit the United States. Currently, Chinese visitors may visit America only for business.
An ADS agreement would not only benefit the U.S. and Chinese tourist industries, but also encourage people-to-people contact and better understanding among the citizens of the two countries. Chinese tourists can revitalize stagnant visitor markets in Hawai'i, bringing an estimated 50,000 visitors annually, at a minimum.
Washington officials worry that many Chinese visitors given tourist visas would take advantage of them and refuse to return home.
This sounds ridiculous. With the persistent economic boom and steady rise in standard of living in China, the gap with the West is shrinking. Chinese people enjoy a pretty comfortable life at home.
In fact, as more U.S. companies outsource to China, more jobs are created there than in the United States. There is no reason for Chinese who enjoy a comfortable middle-class life at home to risk everything by staying in America.
They would have to begin an inferior life as illegal immigrants and build their careers from scratch. European and Asian countries that welcome Chinese tourists have not had a major problem with Chinese visitors taking advantage of their tourist visas.
The profits from Chinese tourists more than outweigh the negligible loss from a limited number of illegal stays.
My stay in Hawai'i is due to end in May. Like other Chinese who were lucky enough to have seen the splendid sunset at Waikiki, I hope I may return as one of 50,000 Chinese on visitor visas and relive my wonderful stay in the Aloha State.
Pang Yong, a Parvin Fellow at the University of Hawai'i, is a reporter for Xinhua News Agency.
