A committee of San Diego City Council said that it has approved a $3 million plan with an aim to boost the regional tourism industry of San Diego thereby attracting more travellers from China.
This would also enable them to restore the lost business from Los Angeles and offer an increased amount of publicity to Balboa Park.
If the City Council completely approves this plan, the funds would be divided equally among the three initiatives, as declared by the executive director of the Tourism Marketing District of the city named Brian Hughes. Joe Terzi, the CEO of the San Diego Tourism Authority said that they have started making overtures to Chinese airlines for the last few years about the concept of non-stop flying to San Diego from Beijing and/or the city of Guangzhou.
Currently, there exist 124 nonstop flights every week between California and China.
However, none of them take off or even land in San Diego. Terzi told the member of the council’s Economic Development and Intergovernmental Relations Committee that the entry of the Chinese market is likely to be ‘very significant’ for the tourism sector of San Diego. He has added that right now, the region is preferred by the Chinese tourists who visit Los Angeles for simple day trips.
Terzi declared that their investment in China has been initiated in order to gain recognition in the community.
And, he stated that next year, the non-stop service to China would commence very soon. Japan Airlines offers the only daily non stop service between Asia and San Diego with its Tokyo route.
This funding would also permit San Diego to boost its advertising in Los Angeles. Hughes said that since the last seven years, the annual number of visitors from this neighbor had dropped by nearly 400,000.
