I've been meaning to write about this topic for a couple months (and hoping someone on the blogosphere would write on it before me so I wouldn't waste brain power), and with an email sent to me from a friend after my post yesterday, I figure now I should write on the issue of "approved destination status" of Chinese visiting the United States. We had a write-up in the February print issue of our 中国旅业参考 (China Hospitality News), but because it is Chinese-language and targeted at Chinese corporate travel bookers/buyers, few readers of this blog would have had an opportunity to read it.

This is all very important for us because more than half of all our company's income comes from travel-related companies and services. Two of our biggest services at BDL Media are a software service and publishing service, respectively, and we manage databases covering a few million travel-related loyalty marketing contacts for companies like Air France, Marriott, and Starwood operating in China.

ADS is already available for Chinese traveling to many countries. ADS allows travel agencies in China to assist Chinese to get to those countries. For example, if a Chinese tourist wants to visit an ADS country, the tourist usually only needs to deal with a travel agency for all the visa issues. This greatly reduces the amount of frustration for the tourist, and also places the burden on the travel agency that the Chinese tourist will return to China after the trip is completed. Because of this "burden", many travel agencies take large monetary deposits from Chinese travelers prior to trips. If I remember correctly, when I traveled to Thailand 8 years ago with my Chinese friend, she had to give the travel agency a RMB20,000 (about US$2,500 at the time) deposit that was returned to her when she came back to China.

Last December, a landmark travel agreement was signed between the U.S. and China for ADS-related services. This is good because according to our China Hospitality News publication Chinese visitors spend more money per trip than international visitors from other markets, spending more than US$6000, on average, per visitor trip in 2006.

But we are already seeing buzz in Chinese BBSs and Chinese news reports containing sometimes-incorrect data about what exactly the ADS will be and how it will work with Chinese. I'm still a little lost too, but in recent weeks I've met with tourism boards from both China and the U.S.; a delegation from the San Francisco Airport Authority in Shanghai; a couple meetings with the diplomats at the U.S. consulate in Shanghai, and attended two American Chamber of Commerce Travel & Tourism committee meetings in Shanghai. So the following is a bullet-point list of the top four details that are on the table for ADS (some of these things can/will change) that I have cobbled together from all these travel-related meetings:

1) ADS for Chinese to the U.S. will begin around June 2008.

2) ADS will initially only be for group travel to the U.S. by Chinese travelers.

3) Similar to how the American Chamber of Commerce in China has the authority to help expedite visas to the U.S. by putting guests of American companies on a "fast track" to get them their American visas, travel agencies may also have the authority and ability to give visas to Chinese travelers. Re-read that last sentence. Did you digest it? Those of you who have ever visited the U.S. Consulates or Embassy in China will understand what a mess of extremely long lines of people wait for visas to the United States. It's extremely frustrating for people to wait up to 8 weeks for a visa interview to travel to the U.S., so by giving travel agencies the authority to issues visas, there will be more options for Chinese travelers to obtain their visas in their passports (and diminish the lines at the consulates).

4) There is a proposal on the table to issue Chinese visas good for up to five years! This will also decrease the lines at the embassy and consulates because fewer people will be going back for visa renewals. Remember that China and the U.S. have a ridiculous visa reciprocity system, but if the U.S. issues 5-year visas, this may also mean that Americans can receive 5-year visas to China (most likely only for F or the coveted Z visas, though).

There is lots more to talk about on this subject and I merely provided the most important points. As more big details become clearer, I will try my best to pass along the info.