Hawai'i officials have been discussing the issue with federal officials as well as Chinese officials, while exploring other ways to make Asia travel to the state easier, said Ted Liu, director of the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism. Having a tourism office in Beijing, which was approved by the Chinese government in August, is a step in that direction, he said.

Liu said he's hopeful that Hawai'i will obtain the status, noting that international policies tend to "go through swings."

"I think the pendulum has swung pretty far in favor of security, which I agree with," Liu said. "But I expect that with technologies in place, ... all these things that are being done now, that it will probably swing more toward what the norm has always been prior to 9/11, which is ease of movement of people. There are going to be 100 million Chinese traveling out of China by the year 2020. There's going to be natural progression towards that. Our job is to accelerate that."

In Saipan, Gov. Juan N. Babauta said Wednesday that he received notice of the approval from Shen Huirong, an official with China's National Tourism Administration.

A formal agreement recognizing the Marianas' "approved destination status" is to be signed by officials from both governments next month. Chinese citizens can travel to countries not on the approved list, but not formally as tourists.

"We've been working on this for many years now," Babauta said. "The (commonwealth) is the first U.S. jurisdiction to have gotten this approval.

"Hawai'i has been working on this for many, many years. Guam has been working on this for many, many years."

The United States as a whole has not actively sought approved destination status.

Hawai'i and Nevada, however, have been licensed by the Chinese government to allow state marketing officials to work directly with Chinese government agencies, airlines, tour operators and other businesses to increase travel.

The international tourism industry considers China, with a population of 1.4 billion, to be a gold mine in terms of potential tourists. Various studies have showed that in the next five years, China's overseas travelers could reach 20 million, commonwealth officials said.

Babauta said he's hopeful the Marianas, a U.S. commonwealth with a population of 51,000 about 3,800 miles southwest of Hawai'i, can triple the annual number of Chinese tourists to its islands.

About 30,000 Chinese visited the commonwealth in the most recent fiscal year, according to the Marianas Visitors Authority.

The agency already has started increasing its profile in China. In June, the authority signed a one-year, $500,000 contract with international public relations firm Ruder Finn Asia to market itself in China as a destination.