13 Chinese journalists get taste of Seattle area during visit to prompt tourism

How far would you go for a good Washington wine? Maybe just to the corner grocery, or your neighborhood wine shop. Or feeling adventurous, perhaps you'd drive to a Woodinville winery or a Yakima Valley vineyard.

But would you fly 5,400 miles?

Jerry Ma did. So did Ying Li. And Min Liu. And because they did, many of their Chinese countrymen may follow.

"It's beautiful. Like a movie set," said Ma, climbing out of a tour bus in bright sunshine at Chateau Ste. Michelle in Woodinville on Sunday. "I haven't seen anything like this."

Truth be told, the 13 Chinese journalists who departed Monday after a five-day Puget Sound stay came for a lot more than Washington wine. They went up the Space Needle. They rode the Ducks. They checked out Pike Place Market.

On the move nearly every waking hour, they visited the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, the Wing Luke Asian Museum in Seattle and the Boeing plant in Everett and even found time to stop by Mount Rainier and Snoqualmie Falls.

"Travelers want diversity," said Ma, 24, who writes for China BT MICE, a magazine for business travelers. "And there is so much to experience here."

That's exactly what Ma's hosts had hoped to hear. These writers, editors and photographers were on a "familiarization tour" for overseas journalists hosted jointly by Washington State Tourism, Seattle's Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Port of Seattle.

About a dozen such trips are conducted each year, but this is just the second year a group from China has been included, as travel restrictions between the two countries have eased.

When it comes to impressing outsiders, the stakes are high: Visitors spent $15.7 billion in Washington state last year, directly supporting 150,000 jobs in the hospitality industry and generating $1 billion in local and state tax revenue, said Marsha Massey, executive director of the Washington State Tourism Commission.

Although international travel accounted for only about 11 percent of that spending, Massey said it's a fertile area for growth. Since 2007, she noted, international airlines have begun nonstop service connecting Seattle to Paris, Frankfurt, Mexico City and Beijing.

Nearly all participants in the Chinese group were newcomers to Washington, their impressions shaped by an awareness of Starbucks, Microsoft, Boeing — and the 1993 movie "Sleepless in Seattle," still popular in China.

"People here have a very romantic lifestyle," said Liu, 29, a reporter for China Radio International. "They don't just go to work and go home and live like a puppet. They want the quality of life, and that's also something the Chinese visitor would want to know about."

Residents of China may not be clear on the difference between Washington state and Washington, D.C., but a visit in 2006 by Chinese President Hu Jintao, which included dinner at Bill Gates' home in Medina, helped pique their curiosity about the Seattle area.

Fresh air, mountains, trees and lakes all are potential draws for the Chinese traveler, who is likely to come from a congested city, Liu said.

Li, 28, an editor from the National Geographic Traveler, said she was looking for ideas for Seattle-bound travelers besides the most obvious ones, such as the Space Needle. Among her favorite experiences: seeing the friendliness of people in Fremont, which she sees as a little city within the city.

Riding "the Duck," the amphibious World War II landing craft that takes riders around town and into Lake Union, was a big hit. "We thought a bus was coming to pick us up," Liu said, "When all of a sudden, with the horn blowing and pop music going, a Duck boat appeared in front of us. ... It was hilarious."

Ma said his audience of business travelers would be particularly drawn to attractions that combine a fun experience with learning, such as hearing about how a fine wine is made at Chateau Ste. Michelle.

Media tours such as this rely on participation from the travel industry, in the form of free or reduced-rate services at hotels, restaurants and other attractions. Hainan Airlines, which began Seattle-Beijing flights last year, provided complimentary airfare to the participants on this trip.

Tom Norwalk, president and CEO of Seattle's Convention and Visitors Bureau, said showing off the state to journalists, each of whom can influence thousands of other travelers, "really is still the tried and true way of getting people to experience and write about a destination."

Ask Norwalk to describe benefits of such a tour and he'll spread out a stack of Chinese publications, each containing an article written by a participant on last year's tour.

Their bold headlines and striking photographs tout Seattle as an innovative city, a romantic city, an international city and the gateway to experiences as diverse as wine-tasting, whale-watching and casino gambling.

With the 2010 Winter Olympics in British Columbia in February, this is a particularly important time for Washington to show its best face.

"The eyes of the world will be on the Northwest," Massey said. Even so, Massey said Washington is unlikely to see a major boost in tourism during the games, when the focus will be on Vancouver and Whistler.

An important part of the state's efforts during the Olympics will be touting the state to members of the media, who, like this week's Chinese travelers, could return home to tell their audiences about the area.

"Our expectation," Massey said, "is that the biggest opportunity for Washington is going to be in the next 18 months to two years."

Jack Broom: 206-464-2222 or jbroom@seattletimes.com

An earlier version of this story, published November 3, 2009, and corrected November 5th, 2009, gave an incorrect title for China Radio International. We regret the error.