San Francisco expands representation in China

The San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau (SFCVB), in partnership with San Francisco International Airport (SFO), opened its second representative office in China Friday, this one in Beijing.

Recognizing that the outbound Chinese travel market has enormous potential, the SFCVB opened its first representative office in 1999 in Shanghai, making San Francisco the first U.S. city to have representation services in mainland China.

San Francisco's representatives in both Shanghai and Beijing work to promote San Francisco to the professional travel trade, consumers, media and airlines. They aid airlines promoting services to San Francisco, encourage press coverage of the region and assist the travel trade with information to help them generate increased bookings to San Francisco. This includes business travel, technical visits and convention attendance as well as the burgeoning leisure travel market.

"Many conventions in San Francisco have a very high percentage of international attendees, particularly in the medical and high-tech fields. This segment presents a great opportunity to expand the delegations that come from China," said Deborah Reinow, vice president tourism for the SFCVB.

San Francisco International Airport currently has 21 non-stop flights from China including United Airlines' daily non-stop service from Shanghai and Beijing and a non-stop Air China flight from Beijing.

"We are confident that this service will increase over time. SFO is currently the only West Coast airport with the ability to handle the world's biggest aircraft, the A380," said Kandace Bender, SFO deputy airport director communications and marketing. "The new international terminal, opened in 2000, has 24 international gates with easy domestic connections under one roof."

China has a population of 1.3 billion people. It is estimated that more than 225 million will have the resources to travel internationally in the near term. In 2005, San Francisco received more than 70,000 visitors from China. That number is expected to grow by double digits annually over the next few years.

Source: Xinhua