Major Metropolis Needs China Ready Training
The city of Los Angeles plays host to nearly 50 million tourists a year. Over 1 million of which hail from China. That’s more than any other U.S. city and a lot of reason to be proud. Part of the challenge was that these Chinese travelers were only staying a few days before heading off to another destination city. The Los Angeles Tourism and Convention Board came to CLA hoping we could help them hold on to their Chinese travelers a little longer.
Our year long China Ready Training Program gave them the tools they needed to entice and retain the Chinese tourist in a revolutionary way, increasing their tourism numbers and setting them up for years to come with the skills they need to stay competitive in the game. Training: Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board (LATCB)
CHALLENGE
The city of Los Angeles was seeing strong Chinese tourist arrivals, but most of these tourists only stayed in Los Angeles for a few days before leaving to visit other markets. The city of Los Angeles wanted to increase the number of nights that Chinese tourists stayed in Los Angeles and to help its members more actively court and cater to Chinese visitors.
SOLUTION
China Luxury Advisors worked with LATCB to conceptualize and run 10 monthly in-person China Ready Trainings in the first year of the program. CLA developed all of the training material for all of the in-person trainings and personally led the training sessions. CLA also created minimum China Ready Designation requirements by category for LATCB members and reviewed and vetted all China Ready Designation applications, answering questions and providing counsel to LATCB members as needed. CLA created a comprehensive activation strategy, including organizing a receptive tour operator “trade show” in Los Angeles and facilitating a China sales mission for China-Ready members.
RESULTS
The China Ready program was very well received by LATCB members, illustrated not only by much higher than anticipated attendance but by high average seminar “value” ratings (4.2 on a 5-point scale) and the fact that 92% of survey respondents said the program met and/or exceeded expectations. Fifty percent of attendees stated that their organization has already made changes as a result of the trainings and twenty-nine percent of attendees stated that their organization is planning to make changes as a result of the program. Sixty-two percent of attendees were very interested in continued China Ready programming. LATCB has continued the program in following years with in-person training and webinars, China missions and an annual tradeshow in LA for China-Ready members.