ChinaOB Daily: First Chinese cruise, California, Canada and Taiwan

Editor’s note: Last week we started a new daily roundup of news affecting outbound business, for countries trying to attract Chinese travelers. Follow all news from ChinaOB Daily.

• China’s first worldwide cruise to debut: A cruise ship will debut next year sailing from Shanghai across three oceans, five continents, stopping at 16 nations in 83 days..The trip for Chinese travelers will set sail on March 22.
• California’s new celeb Chinese tourism ambassador to start state visit: The new ambassador, Beijing-born Gao Yuanyuan, is touring California next week and making appearances at popular tourists spots such as Staples Center and Universal Studios Hollywood. Her appearances will be shown on websites that are popular in China.
• California banking on Chinese tourists money: Half a million Chinese travel to California annually, projected to be a million by 2015…it get about 47% of the Chinese travelers that come to U.S.
• Canada’s Chinese tourists count rising rapidly: Travelers from China to Canada took about 29,400 trips in February, up a staggering 31% from the 22,000 year before, Statistics Canada said…The number of Chinese arrivals to Canada has grown, to 288,000 in 2012 from about 160,000 in 2009.
• Chinese visitors to Taiwan rising: The number of Chinese mainlanders traveling to Taiwan as individual tourists from January to May totaled 166,000, an increase of 237.49 percent year on year, new data has showed.