Laura Gunderson's Oregonian article "China's 'retail tourists' ripe with potential for Portland:"
A Chinese film crew in town to shoot the Rose City for a television
travel show was surprised at how few items Portlanders picked up at
Wednesday's downtown farmer's market.
Chinese shoppers, they said, load up on many more fruits, vegetables and meat at their farmer's markets.
In part, it's buying habits such as those that
two businesswomen aim to import on a much larger scale -- think Prada
and Gucci, instead of peppers and goat cheese.
Liying Zheng, chief executive of the firm Beaverton-based Pacific
Education & Cultural Exchange Center, helped bring the film crew
here hoping that after the Portland episode airs this fall, Chinese
from a handful of wealthier provinces recently approved to tour the
U.S. will add a Portland stop to their itineraries for a day of
sales-tax-free shopping.
The notion of retail tourism -- playing up a destination's haute
couture offerings -- has picked up in recent years, yet a weakened U.S.
dollar and a sluggish domestic economy make foreign shoppers all the
more welcome. And China, tourism and retail experts agree, offers
untapped potential.
Changes this spring to agreements between the U.S. and China now
allow travel by tourist groups from seven provinces, including JiangSu,
the region in which Portland's sister city, Suzhou, is located.
Last year, 40 million Chinese traveled abroad, said Tong Defa,
China's consul in San Francisco. Some 300,000 traveled to the U.S. for
business, academic or government-relations work.
"Oregon has a lot potential" for Chinese tourism, said Defa,
referring to Portland's relationship with Suzhou and Oregon's sister
state of Fujian province.
The Chinese most likely to visit Oregon are more sophisticated,
looking to see both the state's natural beauty along with Portland's
growing collection of local independent as well as high-end boutiques,
such as Tiffany & Co. and Luis Vuitton, said Jin Lan, president of
the Oregon-Fujian Sister State Association. They're also likely to drop
an average of $2,000 to $3,000 per person per trip, he said.
Lan's association is working to bring another TV crew to Portland
from Xiamen, a city within Fujian, and has invited Chinese
photographers to capture the state's scenic attractions, such as Crater
Lake and Mount Hood.
"Right now, the efforts are sort of fragmented," Lan said. "If we
could direct our efforts together, we'd be much more powerful."
An initial group of 240 Chinese tourists arrived in the U.S. in
mid-June, hitting New York, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and San
Francisco, where in less than an hour group members spent $8,000 at an
Apple store, said Zheng's business partner, Jenny Dong.
"The U.S. is one big giant discount shopping mall," said Scott
Krugman, spokesman for the National Retail Federation. Although his
association doesn't track retail tourism, Krugman said chambers of
commerce in several places, including New York and Chicago, have
launched marketing campaigns to draw international shoppers.
Portland has competition. Seattle planned to open a travel office in
Beijing on July 1, following other states -- including Nevada, the
first state to market itself there in 2004 -- and Los Angeles. Hawaii
opened its second office there this summer.
Next month, Nevada will host the first of about 100 Chinese tourists
visiting the West, said Bethany Drysdale, spokeswoman for the state's
Commission on Tourism. Past groups of Chinese journalists and
businessmen snapped up belt buckles and turquoise jewelry, she said.
"They always want to see the Grand Canyon and the Vegas strip -- the
American sites," she said. "Then we leave them for the evening and the
next morning they tell us about all the shopping they did after we went
to bed."
Retail-tourism prospects sound entirely plausible to Sho Dozono, the
travel agency owner who helped with a similar effort nearly 25 years
ago.
In 1984, a television show filmed in Bend, "From Oregon with Love,"
aired in Japan and soon gained a loyal following that Dozono said
helped lead Delta to reinstate a direct flight to Tokyo, bring tens of
thousands of tourists and spur business investments here.
"The only way to get the message out about Portland there is through
mass media. No one could afford a marketing campaign on that scale," he
said. "This may give us only 20 minutes of TV exposure, but you hope
it's building a relationship."
Portland will be among several U.S. cities featured in JiangSu
Broadcasting's travel series, "Chinese People See the World," expected
to air in October.
As part of filming beginning last week, a two-man crew visited,
among other places, a local winery, the Columbia Gorge, the coast and
several retail destinations, including Northwest 23rd Avenue and the
Pearl District. On Wednesday, they followed shoppers at the farmers
market, zooming in for one shot on potatoes (common in Chinese markets)
and in another berries (not so familiar back home).
With translating and interviewing help from Dong, producer Yulong
Wei called out questions while the cameraman filmed shoppers wandering
through a midmorning mist.
"In China, we always say if there's a good thing or good place
that's hiding, people will find you," Wei said. "Portland is a
beautiful place that Chinese people don't know. But they'll want to
make an effort to come here."