Los Angeles Tourism CEO Explains the Exponential Rise of The Chinese Traveler

Last year, China surpassed Canada as the number one international inbound travel market into Los Angeles. Ernest Wooden Jr., president and CEO of Discover Los Angeles, visited Skift's New York office recently to discuss how the destination marketing organization was one of the first U.S. tourist boards to open an office in Beijing over a decade ago. Since then, members of the bureau and other tourism and economic stakeholders in L.A. have worked with local Chinese airlines and tour operators to drive higher levels of inbound traffic year-over-year. Additionally, almost 200 U.S. and Chinese tourism leaders gathered in Los Angeles to discuss new partnerships and policies in September 2015 for the 9th annual U.S.-China Leadership Summit. Wooden says that kind of collaboration is one of the reasons why Chinese arrivals has surged 523% in the last decade, with double digit increases in the last five consecutive years. "Most people in the U.S. never thought about China w