Chinese tourists hit the outlet stores, notthe surf, in California

Jeffrey Hsu, left, a Mandarin-speaking sales associate, helps Ding Sheng, a Chinese tourist, shop for boots at the Ugg

Australia store at the Desert Hills Premium Outlets in Cabazon, California. Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times/MCT

Minutes after arriving by bus at an outlet mall in California, a dozen or so Chinese tourists

hustled out to buy luggage that would soon be stuffed with high-end clothes, shoes and

bags.

But not Guoshing Cui, a Samsung supervisor from Guangzhou. He made a beeline for the

Coach store, where he picked out three expensive handbags. He paid more than $800

from a wad of $100 bills.

The bags were gifts for family and friends in China. Coach goods sell there for two to three

times the price in the United States. “It’s a smart move,” he said of his purchases.

That kind of power shopping has made Chinese tourists the highest-spending overseas

visitors to the United States. This in turn makes them among the most valued customers for

U.S. outlet malls, shopping centers and tour bus operators.

Chinese tourists spend about $3,000 per visit to California, compared with $1,900 for other

overseas visitors, according to the latest government statistics. About one-third of the

spending goes for gifts and souvenirs.

By Los Angeles Times, adapted by Newsela staff on 06.11.13

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“What we know about Chinese visitors is they don’t like to lay on the beaches,” said Ernest

Wooden Jr., president of the Los Angeles Tourism and Convention Board. “What they do

like is shopping.”

Strong Chinese Economy, Growing Middle Class

The Chinese money helped set a record for spending by foreign visitors to the United

States -- $168.1 billion in 2012, according to U.S. officials.

China’s strong economy and its growing middle class mean that more Chinese citizens

have money to travel and spend, according to tourism experts. The middle class in China

numbered 247 million people in 2011. That is 18 percent of the population. It is projected

to grow to more than 600 million by 2020.

Visitors to California from China are typically professionals, executives or managers. They

have an average annual income of $66,900. That compares with an average income of

about $5,000 for all Chinese residents.

To bring in more Chinese spending, store owners, hotel managers and tour guides in

Southern California are going out of their way to welcome Chinese tourists.

Twenty of the 130 stores at the Desert Hills Premium Outlets have Mandarin-speaking sales

clerks such as Jeffrey Hsu, who works at the mall’s Ugg Australia store.

“I think we understand their customs,” Hsu said. “When someone comes to a foreign

country, they want to bring back gifts for their family and friends.”

Spending by Chinese travelers has grown fast in the past few years. It now exceeds that of

other high-spending visitors, including travelers from Japan, Australia, Brazil and South

Korea.

The customs and characteristics of their economy back home shape how foreign visitors

spend their time and money when they are in the United States.

Australians, for example, have a similar culture to people in the United States and are more

likely than other travelers to visit museums, art galleries and historical places.

“We are fascinated by peoples of different cultures,” said James McKay, an engineer from

Melbourne, whose recent visit to the United States included a tour of Alcatraz, the former

prison island in San Francisco. He visited the Pearl Harbor memorial in Hawaii and Ground

Zero in New York. He also took a historic tour of Disneyland with his wife, Karen.

Japanese tourists spend heavily at restaurants because certain foods, especially red

meat, are much more expensive at home, according to travel surveys.

That may explain why Morton’s steakhouse in Beverly Hills, Calif., is hugely popular among

Japanese tourists.

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“Don’t even put fish or chicken in front of them,” Joanna Sanchez, a spokeswoman for the

restaurant, said of Japanese visitors. “They come for steak.”

Looking For Luxury Gifts

But Chinese tourists tend not to shop for themselves. Most of their purchase -- usually

high-end clothes and accessories shown in American movies and magazines -- are gifts

for friends and family. Chinese tourists in the United States target brands such as Coach,

Ugg, Polo, Nike, Tommy Hilfiger and Neiman Marcus. Steep Chinese taxes make such

brands two to three times more expensive in China, said Helen Koo, president of America

Asia Tours in Monterey Park, Calif.

“Many tourists feel that the savings more than pay for the entire trip,” she said.

Many Chinese visitors also stock up on vitamins in the United States because they are

suspicious of the quality of supplements sold in China.

To stretch their travel budgets, Chinese tourists prefer shopping at outlet malls.

“We see many visitors head to the luggage store, get a suitcase and then it’s, ‘OK, we are

going to fill the bag,’ ” said Michele Rothstein of Simon Property Group. Simon is one of the

country’s largest mall operators.

Spending At Neiman's, Not the Hotel

Ding Sheng, a tourist from Guangzhou, China, said he took a tour to Rodeo Drive in

Beverly Hills and was planning to see the casinos of Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon.

But he said a shopping outing to the Cabazon outlet mall was the highlight of the trip.

Although Chinese tourists spend heavily on gifts and souvenirs, the travelers typically

skimp on food and lodging, tour guides say. For example, the tour group that chartered a

bus to the Desert Hills Premium Outlets stayed about 75 miles away at an economy hotel

and ate at Chinese buffet restaurants.

“Even when they stay at a cheap hotel, they spend a lot on shopping,” said Nathan Xue, a

tour guide for TPI America.

In fact, the Chinese travelers spent so much during the visit to the outlet mall that it took

Xue an extra hour after his tour bus was scheduled to leave to pull the Chinese tourists

away from the stores.

And when the shoppers finally returned to the bus, it took another 20 minutes for them to

stuff their bulging bags of clothes, shoes and luggage into the bus’s cargo hold.

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