Biden administration courts Chinese tourism comeback

Spending by Chinese visitors to the U.S. is still a fraction of what it was before the pandemic

The Biden administration has a message for Chinese tourists: Please come back. Even as as anti-China rhetoric ratchets up in the U.S., and Washington and Beijing butt heads on everything from trade restrictions to relations with Taiwan, the U.S. is laboring to lure back travelers and students from China after a precipitous drop since the Covid-19 pandemic.

Key takeaways

• The return to the 2019 levels of Chinese visitors to the U.S. would generate $30 billion in GDP and more than 50,000 additional American jobs, according to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo;
• Chinese “visitors” - a broad term that encompasses both tourists and longer-term students - were at the forefront of a boom in international travel to the United States in the decade before the coronavirus pandemic hit;
• Chinese spending in the United States plummeted to about $11.4 billion by 2021, nearly all by Chinese students at American colleges and universities. It rebounded slightly to around $14 billion last year, with education still accounting for most of the expenditures.

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