Marriott has 33 hotels in China operating under the company's brands, including Renaissance, JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton, Fuller said during a visit to Waikiki last week. Marriott expects to have 41 hotels in China by late next year and there are about 20 more hotels in the pipeline, he said.

This expansion will help to make Chinese travelers comfortable with the Marriott brand name in Hawai'i and on the U.S. Mainland, Fuller said.

"What we're looking for there is not only the profits and the opportunity to make money ... (but also) that billboard effect as China becomes a source market," he said.

The international tourism industry considers China, with a population of 1.4 billion, to be an important source of potential tourists. By 2020, China's people will take 100 million trips and become the world's fourth most prolific travelers, behind the United States, Germany and Japan, according to the World Tourism Organization.

Marriott is among a number of hotel chains targeting China for growth as visitors to the country increase and its economy grows. The number of visitors to China between 1998 and 2002 jumped 54 percent to 97.9 million.

The value of China has not been lost on Marriott's competitors. Starwood Hotels & Resorts operates 19 hotels in China, with 12 more under development. Hyatt International is developing 10 new hotels in China.

Marriott has sales offices in Beijing and Shanghai for outbound travel and will open another in Guangzhou by the end of the year, Fuller said.

But some changes are needed to make China travel to Hawai'i and the U.S. Mainland easier.

The United States and China in January relaxed their visa requirements by offering business and pleasure visas valid for 12 months and for multiple trips. Till then, visas were valid for only six months and for one trip.

But the change falls short of an "approved destination status" that would open the United States to greater numbers of Chinese travelers. Chinese citizens can travel to countries not on the approved list, but not formally as tourists.

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

Fuller, who hopes that an airline will secure a direct China-Hawai'i route, said that as the Chinese market evolves, Hawai'i's visitor industry should work to have Mandarin- and Cantonese-speaking employees in hotels and educate workers about the culture.

"I think the biggest problem we have — and I think Hawai'i is better at this than anybody else — is cultural sensitivity," Fuller said.

"I don't think that exists in most of Mainland USA as well as it does in Hawai'i. I think Hawai'i is exceptional for that.

"But we're going to have to bolster ourselves along that line."