As a growing number of Chinese travel abroad for business and leisure, competition to lure mainland travelers is also heating up. One of the people responsible for steering mainland travelers to the United States, and one of the most experienced aviation professionals working in China today, is Delta Airlines’ Director&Chief Representative of China & Hong Kong, Sandeep Bahl. Bahl has worked in aviation for more than two decades, and has been stationed in either Japan or China since 1997.

From his office in Bejing, Bahl oversees Delta’s marketing flights out of Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong to Tokyo, Seattle and Detroit. China Travel Daily recently sat down with Bahl to discuss China travel trends, and the efforts from the U.S. tourism industry to attract Chinese visitors.

“China has become a very competitive market, and travelers here have become very savvy,” Bahl says. “When I first came here, to travel outside China was a luxury. In 2003, less than five million outbound trips were made. Today, they take almost 50 million trips per year. Chinese travelers have the will to travel, they like it, and they now also have the means.”

A growing number of trips taken means that Chinese travelers’ tastes are slowly evolving to incorporate more than the most popular destinations, like New York, Los Angeles and Washington, DC, says Bahl.

“A first timer will visit the biggest cities,” he says. “But we’re seeing interest expand beyond those places.”  When Delta launched its Beijing-Seattle flight in June, for example, the airline’s representatives started fielding questions about side trips to Mt. Rainier and Reno, Nevada. Other destinations that have seen surprising increasing interest from Chinese travelers, says Bahl, include Yellowstone National Park and Cincinnati (he attributes that one to the Kentucky Derby).
 
Chinese travel

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